Friday, June 13, 2008

Dallas Mayor Leppert now deemed “gay friendly”

By John Wright of Dallas Voice

One year ago June 16, Tom Leppert defeated Ed Oakley in a runoff to become mayor of Dallas.

Leppert’s victory was a setback for many in the LGBT community, who’d hoped Oakley would become the first openly gay mayor elected to represent one of the nation’s 10 most populous cities. But the outcome also created uncertainty, as gay-rights activists waited to see how high the stakes had really been.

While a victory for Oakley would have made history, Leppert was largely an unknown quantity.

A retired business executive, he was a political newcomer and an apparent conservative whose support for the LGBT community was deemed questionable at best.

Leppert vowed during the campaign that he wouldn’t seek to roll back critical gay-rights victories from over the years, such as domestic partner benefits for city employees and an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.

Leppert also said during the campaign that he’d continue a tradition started by predecessor Laura Miller – the most LGBT-friendly mayor in Dallas’ history — of appearing each year in the city’s gay Pride parade.

But LGBT activists also knew Leppert had strong Republican ties, and that he’d made campaign contributions to candidates with poor records on gay issues, such as President Bush and Congressman Pete Sessions, R-Texas. What’s more, Leppert’s campaign failed to respond to an endorsement survey from the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, the city’s nonpartisan LGBT equality group.

When an anti-gay robo call and e-mail attacking Oakley went out during the mayor’s race, some speculated that Leppert may have been behind them. Meanwhile, Oakley openly accused his opponent’s supporters of conducting a gay-baiting whisper campaign.

Leppert repeatedly denied any involvement, but in interviews with Dallas Voice, he also refused to give a yes-or-no answer to the question, “Are you gay-friendly?”

A year later, Leppert still won’t answer the question affirmatively, saying he should be judged on his performance in office. But LGBT activists are no longer reluctant to use the term in describing the mayor.

“I think he’s walked the walk,” DGLA President Patti Fink said recently. “I would say that he’s gay-friendly.”

Although no formal LGBT-related policy issues have come before the City Council during Leppert’s first year in office, Fink and others say they’ve been relieved and pleasantly surprised, if not thoroughly impressed, with the mayor’s outreach.

Leppert hired an openly gay chief of staff, Chris Heinbaugh. He fulfilled his campaign promise by appearing in the Pride parade — on foot, nonetheless — and he’s since spoken at the Black Tie Dinner and countless other LGBT events.

In fact, although Leppert insists he has his own shoes to fill, LGBT activists from Fink to Oakley himself say the mayor seemingly has picked up right where Miller left off.

“He is really reaching out to our community in ways that prior to Laura, didn’t take place,” Oakley said. “He’s carried on the tradition that she set in reaching out to our community.”

Fink, then one of Leppert’s biggest skeptics, was highly critical of Dallas Voice for printing a front-page headline during the mayor’s race which suggested that Leppert was indeed gay-friendly.

“At the time, to call him gay-friendly, I thought, was incredibly premature,” Fink said. “We had nothing to affirm that, and a year later, I think we do.”

Extensive outreach

Within about a month of taking office, Leppert hired Heinbaugh, the openly gay former WFAA-TV reporter, as his chief of staff. During a 30-minute interview with Dallas Voice at his office recently, Leppert said the decision had nothing to do with Heinbaugh’s sexual orientation and wasn’t intended as a gesture to the LGBT community.

“My judgment was I wanted to have a good person who was going to add a lot of value and I thought I could work with,” Leppert said. “That was my set of criteria, and I hope I take that perspective on anything. I don’t care if a person is orange or whatever else, I think you evaluate people by the type of person they are and what they can contribute.”

Nevertheless, Oakley said he believes Leppert’s decision to hire Heinbaugh served as a good indication that the mayor isn’t homophobic

“That certainly sent a clear message to the community that he had no problem with openly gay individuals working on his staff and being directly involved in his office,” Oakley said.

Within a few weeks of hiring Heinbaugh, Leppert set up a meeting with about 15 LGBT groups at the Cathedral of Hope, Dallas’ predominantly gay megachurch. But Heinbaugh said Leppert had already laid the groundwork for such meetings prior to his coming on board.

Heinbaugh recalled Leppert’s appearance at a subsequent event hosted by the national Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, during which Leppert introduced Judy Shepard, the mother of gay murder victim Matthew Shepard.

“You and I know, when someone comes into a room, and they’re uncomfortable with us, we know they’re uncomfortable,” said Heinbaugh, who called Leppert “very gay-friendly.”

“Everyone was just floored because he dove right in,” Heinbaugh said. “People were just really surprised, because here was someone just speaking from his heart, one parent about another.”

When it came time for the parade, Leppert chose to walk most of the route and interact with spectators.

“He got out and shook hands,” Heinbaugh said. “People who are uncomfortable with us don’t do that.”

Heinbaugh said Leppert attended and spoke at annual events of Log Cabin Republicans and the DFW Federal Club, both LGBT groups. At a recent luncheon for visiting gay travel writers from around the world, Leppert touted Dallas’ as an LGBT destination.

Heinbaugh said Leppert has also worked closely with the North Texas GLBT Chamber on issues like the Trinity River Project, verified response and the Convention Center Hotel.

He added that he believes Leppert’s outreach has been particularly impressive given that most LGBT voters supported Oakley.

“He won without this community,” Heinbaugh said. “The community went for Ed, so you could excuse him for just walking away and blowing it off, but he hasn’t done that.”

Asked why he’s done just the opposite, Leppert cautioned against underestimating his support among LGBT voters.

“As I got a chance to visit with people and that sort of thing, my sense is I probably did better than people thought I would have done,” Leppert said. “The second piece of it, though, was a kind of, that was then and this is now. The reality of it was an election. Now I’m mayor. We need to get everybody in the city engaged, excited about what’s going on and working together, and that’s what counts.”

Oakley said he believes his strong showing in the runoff, in which he captured 42 percent of the vote, demonstrated to Leppert and everyone else that people can no longer take the LGBT community for granted.

“Suddenly, I think the political world has realized,” Oakley said. “They take us seriously now, because we’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Lingering questions?

Leppert has addressed many of the questions that were raised about him during the campaign.

In addition to denying involvement in things like the robocall and e-mail, he said he immediately contacted the people thought to be responsible and demanded that they stop.

With regard to the DGLA survey, Leppert said it may have gotten overlooked by his campaign staff due to the huge number of inquiries in the heat of the campaign.

“Probably today, I would have done it,” Leppert said.

Oakley now says he has no proof, and no reason to suspect, that Leppert had anything to do with the robocall, e-mail or whisper campaign.

“I just don’t get a sense that he would have done so,” Oakley said. “I don’t think he personally had a hand in those.”

For Fink the issue of the DGLA survey is in the past and she’s not judging Leppert for it.

“I would hope that the next time all candidates would choose to participate, and definitely the mayoral candidates,” Fink said.

Oakley, Fink and others also said they have no reason to doubt that Leppert’s support for the LGBT community is genuine and not just politically motivated.

“I think it’s very sincere,” Fink said. “I think he wants to work with our community and include us at the table, and I think that’s incredibly important, particularly since we don’t have an openly gay person [on the City Council].”

Heinbaugh said there’s never been an instance when he felt uncomfortable working for Leppert.

“There are politicians I definitely would never work for,” Heinbaugh said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable working for someone who doesn’t value me as an individual, doesn’t represent me as an individual, and this mayor does.”

Records show Leppert voted in both the Republican Primary and runoff this spring. But as mayor, he said he’s worked hard to be nonpartisan and build a strong coalition.

Fink, a Democrat, said she would be “very hesitant” to give Leppert’s party affiliation any weight given that both DGLA and the mayor’s office are nonpartisan.

“We in our community have worked with Democrats, we’ve worked with Independents, and we’ve worked with Republicans, and I don’t see that ever changing,” she said.

LGBT events at which Leppert has appeared in the last year include the Dallas Log Cabin Republicans’ annual fundraising party. Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin, said the group once invited Mayor Miller to the event to present her with an award, but she declined to attend.

“He’s been very responsive to us, and that’s probably because we’re a Republican club, which shows why, I think, Log Cabin is needed,” Schlein said.

Records show Leppert has also continued to make financial contributions to some candidates who are considered by some to be anti-gay, such as Republican state Rep. Dan Branch of Dallas.

But LGBT activists said they’re willing to forgive those contributions to varying degrees.

Said DGLA Vice President Jeff Strater: “I don’t have a sense that he’s a right-wing nut, and so I think it’s fine that he’s chosen to support folks who might disagree with our community. At the same time, he’s extended an olive branch to us. I think he’s on the right track, and in DGLA, we have an expectation that he keeps an open mind to our issues and continues to work with us.”

Jesse Garcia, president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, agreed that Leppert has a right to make contributions to any candidate he chooses. But Garcia added: “It saddens me that he feels like he has to give money to people who discriminate against our community. That’s probably going to be one reason why people might vote against him [three] years from now.”

Leppert said any analysis of his campaign contributions should also include the fact that he’s given money to the campaigns of Democrats like Ron Kirk, Dallas’ former mayor who ran for U.S. Senate.

“You judge me by what I’m doing, and there’s enough actions that I think people can judge me,” Leppert said.

While that may be true, there have been no formal action on LGBT-specific issues taken by the council. But activists said if and when there is, they’re confident Leppert would live up to the expectations he’s created.

“I think he would be on the right side,” Oakley said. “I have no evidence that it would be to the contrary.”

Strater said currently, DGLA is comfortable working with city staff and the city manager on most issues.

“It’s our hope that if there’s an issue that elevates to the mayor, he’s on our side,” Strater said.

Leppert promised only to listen.

“With the GLBT community, as with any other, if somebody raises up and says, ‘This is an issue, it’s an important one, it’s not being addressed, we need somebody to look at it,’ I won’t commit to which way, but I will certainly commit to let’s look at it and see what the factors are and if something needs to be done,” Leppert said. “I don’t pretend that I can get 100 percent of the people to agree with everything we’re doing, but I certainly want people to feel that they were respected, and I can control that.”

In the meantime, Leppert vowed to continue his extensive outreach to the LGBT community.

“I’ve enjoyed the relationships, and probably the last thing I’d say is, I’ve had a lot of fun at some of the functions and those sorts of things,” Leppert said. “Clearly the GLBT community is a large and important part of Dallas. …

“The only issue that I have is Black Tie,” he added, jokingly. “I got such a good laugh that I’ve got to feel comfortable that I’m going to do something that’s going to get me a laugh again.”

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• Politics and Government > City Government > Dallas > Dallas City Hall

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