In the county known for a horrid track record concerning LGBT rights, Hillsborough County Commissioners voted to table discussion on the creation of a diversity board when anti-gay emails by appointee Terry Kemple surfaced May 15.
After a heated exchange between commissioners Kevin Beckner and Victor Crist about the viability of having an anti-gay member lead a group that is supposed to promote diversity in the county, Democrat Les Miller moved to scuttle the panel’s creation, for now.
The email that ignited the heated debate was from Kemple, to members of his Community Issues Council, a Christian advocacy group. In that email he said the proposed diversity council was “code for some effort to forward the homosexual agenda.” He also went on to say that such a council was not the sort of “important work” on which commissioners in Hillsborough should put their focus.
He still, however, applied for an appointment to the group and was assigned a slot as a “person of Northern and Southern European heritage.”
Leaders at the National Diversity Council told commissioners the email should disqualify Kemple from the post, but Kemple told the commission he still wished to be considered.
Crist recommended Kemple be included. Beckner strongly disagreed.
“To use your personal opinions to try to create public policy that discriminates, promotes hatred, bigotry and divides this community, that is where the line must be drawn,” Beckner said. “Those types of individuals should not be involved in this type of a process.”
Crist, however, said that excluding anyone’s perspective, even if it’s against another group, defeats the purpose of a diversity council.
“The bottom line is there’s a constituency out there in our county that are voters and residents that thinks and feels the same way as Mr. Kemple does and to say they don’t deserve a seat at the table is being exclusive,” said Crist. “We have to begin allowing everyone an opportunity to be able to look everybody straight in the eye and speak their piece and work out their solution.”
Beckner made it clear that he believed Crist only supported Kemple’s appointment because the email talked about LGBT issues, rather than other minorities.
“I would ask everybody here, if you saw an email-and just replace homosexual with disabilities, replace it with woman-if part of the mission of that board is to promote inclusiveness and diversity and yet an individual’s on that board and they don’t believe that to begin with, why should that individual be included or have a seat on that board?” Beckner asked.
Besides combating LGBT rights in the county, Kemple is also outspoken about Islam. Last year he made headlines for protesting the Hillsborough County School Board when a local Muslim leader was invited to speak to a classroom teaching students about different religious practices and beliefs.
Initially the commissioners voted to support Kemple’s appointment 4-3. But Miller’s procedural maneuver to table the final approval of the appointment indefinitely gained the support of Beckner, Mark Sharpe and Ken Hagan.
The appointment could come before commissioners later this summer, but no specific details on when that will happen are available.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Beckner plans to continue his focus on diversity and told commissioners that he plans to ask them to lift a 2005 ban on recognizing LGBT Pride events within Hillsborough County.
