Last weekends’ protest aimed at Mayoral candidate and City Councilman Carl DeMaio during the 38th annual Pride parade continues to reverberate throughout the community. Johnathan Hale, publisher of SDGLN.com – who also happens to be DeMaio’s significant other – posted an article entitled Letter to the Community: Real LGBT leaders don’t put politics above Pride that has provoked fierce debates across social media platforms. The commentary compared DeMaio to LGBT political icon Harvey Milk and accused labor unions of organizing and funding the “Turn Your Back on Carl DeMaio” campaign.
Activist Wendy Sue Biegeleisen took to Facebook to respond, saying, “Harvey Milk was Jewish, from NY and fought for the underdog. He was pro-union, labor, supported diversity, feminism and Equal Rights for all LGBTQQIA people. What about this description sounds like Carl Demaio?” Labor Council leader Lorena Gonzalez, joined the debate via Twitter from the east coast, denying that Labor had a role in the protest and challenging Hale to prove his charges. Kelly Davis over at City Beat chimed in by pointing out that DeMaio “gave LGBT community plenty to be pissed off about by courting support of Charles LiMandri” and posting a link to an article about that controversy the paper had run. SDGLN tweeted back, saying “when @SDCityBeat covers Pride a stellar as the UT did this year, THEN we’ll take your opinions on LGBT issues seriously.” [Read more…]