Ald. Mitts meets with community about LGBT issues by Matt Simonette 2015-06-14
This article shared 2411 times since Sun Jun 14, 2015
Ald. Emma Mitts ( 37th ) met with residents of her ward, local clergy and activists June 13 for a discussion about LGBT issues and how they impacted the Austin community.
Mitts opened the forum by apologizing for and explaining remarks she made in March. At a community forum that was captured on video, Mitts said: "I don't want to be biased here but I don't support the fact that we can have two women marry, two men marry and we then we pay our fees. The tax dollars go and they get just the same benefit as a woman or a man and I don't think that playing field is level."
She was in the midst of a runoff campaign, so Mitts' opponent, Tara Stamps, called for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Chicago Forward PAC to pull the financial help it had promised to Mitts. She apologized soon after, and reiterated that June 13.
"The words that I spoke were not in my heart," Mitts said, adding that after a busy day, "I didn't know what I was saying."
After the dust-up, she said, "I'm a bit more educated now on behalf of the gay community."
Mitts confessed that much of what she had learned was eye opening, and admitted to not even previously being familiar with terminology that same-sex partners might use to introduce or describe each other.
The LGBT community, she nevertheless said, "should not have to be targeted, picked on or embarrassed" to be who they are.
Windy City Times, in past months, has reported on escalating attacks in Austin, particularly against members of the transgender community. But participants in the June 13 dialogue focused mainly on how predominantly African-American churches address homosexuality and influence their congregants' perception of it.
Griff Taylor, senior pastor at New St. John M.B. Church, said that it was an issue his community grapples with. While he said he did not condone anti-gay behavior, "I'm taught that this is an abomination." He added that, where a congregant to come to him for pastoral counseling, fearing that they were gay, he would first try to address supposed root-causes in order to consider whether their sexual orientation was symptomatic of a larger problem.
But other participants said that such an approach was itself a problem, since it contributed to a stigma against homosexuality. Attorney and activist Jacob Meister said, "It's just the way you are."
Mitts recalled attending a church service where gay person was unexpectedly called up from the pews, and the congregants prayed for them. Taylor emphasized that, at his church, such matters were private.
Mitts remembered a meeting with local clergy and Ald. Tom Tunney ( 44th ), held in 2004, and how reluctant the ministers were too discuss LGBT issues.
"The conversation's still not happening, but that has to get started," she said.
This article shared 2411 times since Sun Jun 14, 2015
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