What To Make of Spokane Mayor Jim West

With friends like Spokane Mayor Jim West, who needs enemies?

I’ve not written anything about Mayor West, because I hate to kick someone while he’s down. And down he is - big time. Not only is his political career ruined (that’s unfortunately, a good thing for the gay community), but he may also be spending some time in prison, if allegation of child molestation are proven to be true. He denies that this happened. I’m not going to judge that here. It will be ironed out in the court room. The allegations of molestation of two boys happened decades ago. He is accused of using the trappings of his office to try to court a young man on a gay Web site.

What I will talk about is his absolute hypocrisy on the issue of gay rights. Here, we have a man, who now claims to be gay, who has worked for years against equal rights for gay. Here’s a run down:

James West’s votes on gay rights issues as a state legislator and as mayor

In January 1986, West and 14 other state House Republicans introduced a bill to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers and some state agencies. The bill, which called for firing state workers whose sexual identities became known, failed.

Also in 1986, he voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS during sex.

West opposed gay rights bills introduced in 1985 and 1987.

In 1998, as a senator, West voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

In 2003, West, as Senate majority leader, bottled up a gay rights bill in committee, where it died.

As incoming mayor of Spokane in November 2003, West opposed giving benefits to domestic partners of City Hall workers; the City Council approved domestic partner benefits in a 5-2 vote in April - enough to withstand a mayoral veto that did not occur. (source)

Yet, he wants to claim that his private and public life are two different things. Wrong. If you are a public servant, how you live your personal life is up for public scrutiny. This is especially so if the mayor was making decisions making life more difficult for gay people while being a gay man himself.

A lifelong Republican and former state Senate majority leader, West was best known in Olympia as a fiscal conservative. He rarely led on social issues.

Still, he opposed extending protected-class status to gays during his two decades in the state Legislature, and last week threatened to veto a city ordinance giving benefits to the gay partners of city employees.

In 1986, he supported legislation barring gays and lesbians from working in schools and day-care centers. At the time, he was actively involved in the Boy Scouts.

“He acknowledged he compartmentalized, building a wall between his public and private selves,” said Blaine Garvin, a political-science professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane. “When you do that, you’re not being honest with yourself. I think it’s appropriately called hypocrisy.”

State Rep. Bob McCaslin , a Spokane Valley Republican who served with West, disagrees.

“If you talk about [gay] rights, and his philosophy, I don’t see any hypocrisy,” he said. “I’m sure some people will, if in fact he’s gay.”

West told The Spokesman-Review newspaper that his opposition to gay-rights legislation doesn’t mean he supports discrimination. “I have never been outspoken against gays, I have never discriminated against gays,” he said. “It’s dicey to vote for those bills I consider an extension of a benefit that didn’t exist, need to exist.” (source)

Bullshit. When you prevent bills from becoming laws that would protect gay workers from being fired for being gay, you are supporting discrimination. He did this in 1985 and 1987.

In 1986, West, along with 14 other state House Republicans introduced a bill to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers and some state agencies. Think about that. Yet, this mayor sits there and says, “I have never been outspoken against gays, I have never discriminated against gays.”

This is a man with a deep seeded hatred for people like... himself. He has to deal with these demons as we all have. With all the negative information about gay people that has been thrown at me in my lifetime, it has been very difficult for me to come out on top and feel genuinely good about myself as a person. What has made that happen is my own personal integrity.

I don’t even have to think, “If I were in his position, I would like to think that I would be better.” I simply know that I would be. I wouldn’t put down others to make myself look better. Not ever. Not one time. That is called integrity and it is also why I would not make a good politician. I don’t play the game of politics. If I look someone in the eye and make a statement, they can assume it’s true.

That is what we need in politics today. That is what is missing in Mayor Jim West, our Congress, our Vice President, and our President. None of them - NOT ONE OF THEM - gives a damn about people. None of them can see beyond the issue of how it will make them look in their current office or for their future political aspirations (enter Bill Frist).

It reminds me of 57-year old Mary Mornin, a divorced single mother, who told President Bush, “I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.” The President replies, “Fantastic. The hardest job in America, being a single mom.” Morin tells the President that she works three jobs to do all of this. He said that was “uniquely American” and “fantastic.” He asks her if she gets any sleep. (source)

Maybe it is today “uniquely American” to work three jobs, but there is nothing “fantastic” about it. You have no time to spend with your family because you are busy just surviving, and life should be about more than just surviving. Do you think this President or most politicians for that matter really care about people like Mary Mornin? There are a lot of people like her out there. Maybe you are one of them.

Gay people are an easy target in all of this but what America doesn’t understand is that we are just the smoke screen to what is really happening in this country. You bash gays, you will get votes. That simple. After you get the votes and get into office (the last Presidential race), you can do what you really want to do (no longer have to really push for that anti-gay constitutional amendment against marriage for gays) and continue on your quest to rape the environment, drive our national debt to an all-time high, wage war on a country because they have weapons of mass destruction and when it’s shown that they don’t, create all kinds of diversions (enter Terri Schiavo) so that the American people will forget all about it. And, we will forget, because we have very short memories.

They have us figured out perfectly. So does Mayor Jim West, assuming he can survive the child molestation charges.

More on this released today.

Follow up - 05/24/2005
Follow up - June 5, 2005 - Wrestling with the conservative-approved model of being gay