DETROIT – It was a busy week for anti-gay forces across the country. President Bush kicked off his reelection campaign with relish by calling for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage for gays. Meanwhile, Detroit's mayor made his own case against the rights of gays to marry on a national news program.
Kwame Kilpatrick was a guest on Real Time with Bill Mayer on Friday, Feb. 27. On the show, which is broadcast live on the cable television network HBO, Kilpatrick adamantly opposed marriage for gays.
"I think that where this doesn't belong is in a political discussion and I think that that's where we're starting off on the wrong foot," Kilpatrick said. "I personally do not support gay marriage. No, I don't support gay marriage."
"Is that a political opinion?" Mayer asked.
"I think that marriage is between a woman and a man," answered Kilpatrick. "That is not a political opinion. If I was not in politics I'd say the same thing."
"Based on what?"
"Based on who I am, whose I am and where I come from," Kilpatrick continued.
"But who cares?" asked Mayer. "It's about them."
"It isn't about them," said Kilpatrick. "It's about all of us. I think there might be some genuine relationships. I don't deny that at all."
"Might be?" Mayer asked incredulously.
'You appear to speak out of two sides of your mouth'
"It's not the first time that we've heard this position from the mayor," said Jeffrey Montgomery, executive director of the Triangle Foundation. "He takes refuge in this religious cover that his religion doesn't allow him to support gay marriage."
Indeed, Kilpatrick's relationship with the LGBT community has always been contentious. His voting record on LGBT issues while in the state legislature was fairly good. But from the time he announced his intention to run for mayor in 2001, his contact with the community has consisted of a seesaw of anti-gay statements and partial pledges of support.
Early in his campaign, Kilpatrick angered the gay community by announcing on a local religious program that he did not want his five-year-old twin boys to even see "that kind of lifestyle."
When a fuss was made over the comment, Kilpatrick defended it to the Detroit Free Press.
"I didn't intend it to be anything perverse," he said. "There are things that my impressionable children don't need to see at this age – a man kissing a man, a woman kissing a woman. That's not hatred. It's just that I want to raise strong, proud men that love women."
Some weeks later, Kilpatrick attended a forum at the George M. Fadiga Community Pride Building where he came short of apologizing for the statement but said instead that he "had no idea, as most of society does either, the amount of pain you inflict in other people with your words."
Kilpatrick's comments that night were enough to inspire Rev. Karl Jackson of New Covenant Assembly of Justified Believes to remark that Kilpatrick appeared "to speak out of two sides of your mouth."
The following year, in 2002, Kilpatrick attended the Affirmations Big Bash fundraiser, and began his address to the crowd with a pledge of sorts.
"I know I have some making up to do with this community," he said.
Yet he never offered an apology for his original statements, something Montgomery says is long overdue.
"Not only has he never apologized for those remarks, but he's made some comments in public to the affect of 'there's a lot of difference of opinion between me and the gay community but we're working that out,'" he said. "Well, I have yet to see any evidence of working it out."
In January, Kilpatrick declined to attend the historic town hall meeting on homophobia at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African History. He did send a newly-hired aide who those in attendance claim was visibly defensive. That aide, Karen Dumas, the Kilpatrick administration's executive director of community relations, told the crowd that the mayor had made a pledge to meet with leaders of Detroit's black LGBT community. Days later, though, Dumas told organizers of the forum that they needed to make a formal request for such a meeting and one has yet to be scheduled.
Now, the issue at hand in the city of Detroit is domestic partnership benefits, which is rapidly making its way to the council table. Last week, Triangle and Johnny Jenkins of Detroit Black Gay Pride jointly sent a letter to the mayor asking him to speak out in favor of DP benefits for city employees. So far, the letter has gone unanswered and Montgomery said he was informed by the mayor's office that an answer could be a few weeks in the coming.
"This is an issue that cannot wait a couple weeks," said Montgomery. "It would be good to hear from him very specifically that he is behind the offer to extend these benefits, which he has said in the past he supports. That might be the first thing he's done since becoming mayor that works toward healing this very hurtful wound he inflicted on the city."
Prior to his appearance on Mayer's show, Kilpatrick dodged the DP issue by pointing to possible financial implications.
"As the CEO of the city of Detroit, I have to determine the cost and impact to our city's budget," he told The Detroit News.
"It's always interesting when people in his position say things like this," Montgomery said. "It assumes that's there some limited amount in the budget for health care. It also sort of belies the whole concept of if every single person that worked for the city was heterosexual and married that would cost them a hell of a lot more money to pay out those benefits then it would for the relatively small number of people to come forward who are in a same-sex partnership."
