South Florida Mayors Come Out for Marriage Equality
Far from big-city liberal enclaves and South Florida communities known as havens for gays and lesbians, several local mayors have stepped into what used to be seen as a political minefield: support for gay marriage.
Frank Ortis of Pembroke Pines, Lori Moseley of Miramar and Joy Cooper of Hallandale Beach have recently joined the nationwide Mayors for Freedom To Marry campaign. As of Friday, it included 178 mayors from 32 states.
"I believe in equal rights for all," Moseley said. "I don't think I have the right to tell somebody who to love."
Moseley, whose city is home to 122,000 residents, said her support for gay marriage came "after much soul searching."
She said she has supported civil unions allowing gay couples benefits that go to married couples. As she began to think about it more, she concluded she was splitting hairs by saying yes to civil unions and no to marriage.
Her stand carries no legal weight. In Florida, mayors' opinions on the issue are purely their own.
"It doesn't matter what any mayor in the state of Florida does. There's a state constitutional ban," said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, whose city has neighborhoods with many gay and lesbian residents. "We could spend hours and hours and hours debating this issue, and the end result is going to be the same."
Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick disagreed: "You have to change public opinion and show that it has been changed before you can change the law."
Wilton Manors, home to 11,632 residents, has 140 same-sex couples per 1,000 households, much higher than Florida's 8.8 couple average, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureaudata by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Only Provincetown, Mass., had a higher concentration.
Resnick, who is openly gay, has not officially signed on with Mayors for Freedom To Marry, but said he plans to.
Until recently, most politicians outside big urban centers wouldn't go near the issue.
In 2004, then-President George W. Bush's re-election campaign depicted gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage, to increase turnout among social conservatives.
Four years later, 62 percent of Florida voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution prohibiting gay marriage. It got 52 percent in both Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Public opinion has shifted since then. Eight states have granted marriage rights to same-sex couples.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week found that 49 percent of U.S. voters surveyed favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, up from 41 percent in 2009 and 30 percent in 2004. Opposition is 40 percent, down from 49 percent in 2009 and 62 percent in 2004.
"A decade ago, it was shocking to people. But I think as more and more people begin to interact with [gay] people and have family members and friends [who are gay], it begins to change their minds," said Kathryn DePalo, a political scientist at Florida International University.
Politicians also are not automatically in trouble for supporting same-sex marriage. The Journal/NBC poll found that it wouldn't make any difference to 54 percent of voters, with 25 percent more likely to vote for a supporter and 20 percent less likely.
Still, the mayors of Broward's two largest cities see the issue differently.
Seiler, whose city is home to 165,500 people, is not supporting gay marriage.
He said he preferred to concentrate on "real and tangible" steps, such as providing benefits to the domestic partners of city employees and appointing gays and lesbians to city boards. When he served in the state House of Representatives, Seiler said, he was a sponsor of legislation to overturn the state's former ban on gay couples' adopting children.
Ortis, mayor of 154,750-resident Pembroke Pines, said he gladly signed on as a supporter.
"If two people of the same sex have been living together and want to get married, I don't have any problem with that," he said. "I've always thought if you discriminate against somebody, they can discriminate against me."
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