For McLin, stand on gay rights worth political cost

Overnight snow may cause slippery morning commute
New 27 min. ago
Housing, credit crisis hurt home remodeling
New 29 min. ago
WPAFB escapes cuts in latest budget plan
9:30 p.m.
Legionnaire’s disease outbreak at MVH draws lawsuits
9:23 p.m.
Highway improvements plan delayed
9:18 p.m.
> More headlines

By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer 12:01 AM Thursday, November 5, 2009

Mayor Rhine McLin lost the endorsement of a group of predominantly black ministers in large part because of her support for the city’s gay-rights ordinance. She was chastised for taking a stand for human rights, in other words, by a group of ministers who spent much of their lives fighting for it.

Could the nonendorsement by the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) have played a significant role in her defeat by newcomer Gary Leitzell?

“In a close race, everything is a factor,” said her campaign manager, Montgomery County Democratic Chairman Mark Owens. “It is very ironic that they denied the endorsement because she took the stance that gays shouldn’t be discriminated against because of sexual orientation. She’s concerned about human rights for everyone — blacks, whites, gays.”

In announcing the alliance’s decision, the Rev. Wilburt Shanklin, its president, pointed to factors other than McLin’s stand on the ordinance. “The economy is still in turmoil in the city and we don’t see a lot of relief coming from the City Commission,” said Shanklin. But he also said that when McLin was elected, “we thought we had an agreement” that she wouldn’t support a gay-rights ordinance.

Given the IMA’s past history on this issue, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that this is the gist of the matter. In 2007, Shanklin made the through-the-looking glass argument that in considering a gay-rights ordinance, the Dayton City Commission is “trampling on the blood of Martin Luther King Jr. and on the blood of the suffragettes.” Alliance fliers implied that after granting “special rights” to gays and lesbians, specials rights for sexual predators and pedophiles wouldn’t be far behind.

Yet the alliance isn’t any more unilateral than any other group. Pastor Bob Jones of the College Hill Presbyterian Church, who is IMA’s political and social action chairman, supported McLin and felt disappointed with the election results. “In not making an endorsement we were really leaving it up to the conscience of the people of the church and of faith,” he said Wednesday, Nov. 4. “When you trust in God, things don’t turn out the way we hope or expect.”

The alliance received some complaints about not endorsing McLin, Jones said, because Leitzell’s an unknown quantity and his daughter doesn’t attend Dayton Public Schools: “I don’t have a track record of his being able to provide better leadership, so we’ll be watching and hoping and praying he will move us ahead, because that’s what we all want.”

The Rev. Raleigh Trammell, another alliance member, had no regrets about the endorsement decision, citing leadership issues rather than the gay-rights ordinance. “We needed new leadership,” said the longtime leader of the Dayton Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “It wasn’t only the ministers but ordinary citizens who didn’t see a way out of where we are.”

Leitzell “has been elected mayor, and we need to give him the opportunity to perform with the cooperation of all involved,” he said.

Let’s hope that’s the general spirit of the alliance, moving forward, rather than the homophobic statements of the past.

As for McLin, Owens said she doesn’t regret her stance on the ordinance even if it cost her politically: “She’s proud of what she did because she stood up for what is right and what she believes in.”

Share this article