Proud to dine with queers, proud to vote against queers?

Well the reason I was surprised to see Lovelace is that unlike Foley, who was there to tell us about Montgomery County’s new policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in county hiring, or Whaley, who was there to remind us of her support in 2007 for an ordinance prohibiting such discrimination in the City of Dayton, Lovelace actually supports discrimination against queers.

In case you don’t remember, in 2007, Dean Lovelace voted to keep discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity legal in the City of Dayton. Perhaps by attending the Pride Dinner he’s hoping that queers have forgotten that, and maybe also that African American pastors from the the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, who also opposed the ordinance in 2007, will be unaware of his attending a gay pride event.

If a white politician in 1967 had voted to keep racial discrimination legal, would he have been welcome at a NAACP dinner?

Perhaps if such a politician publicly recanted his vote and opposed any new attempts to make discrimination legal again, he’d be welcome.

I don’t know if black ministers are still thinking about trying to put Dayton’s non-discrimination ordinance up for a public vote, but if they do, Lovelace will have a chance to redeem himself. Until such a time I say that his 2007 vote trumps his 2009 Pride Dinner attendance.

And I won’t have forgotten his 2007 vote if he runs for re-election in 2011.