Mayoral candidates lobby for gay vote

By Eric Stirgus

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Within hours of an Atlanta police raid of a popular gay Midtown bar this month, the news releases came in rapid-fire succession.

All four leading mayoral candidates — Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes — sent statements urging city officials to conduct a fair investigation into the Sept. 10 raid at the Atlanta Eagle and punish any police officers found to have violated the bar patrons’ civil rights.

Another candidate, Kyle Keyser, went to a rally at the bar the following Sunday to protest what demonstrators argue was police misconduct.

The quick responses to the raid highlight the increasingly fierce battle among the candidates for votes from Atlanta’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Some estimate 15 percent of Atlanta residents are LGBT, and which way they vote could ultimately decide who becomes the city’s 59th mayor.

“This is going to drive voter turnout in the gay community like nothing has,” said Michael Alvear, a gay Midtown resident who said his blog has exploded with responses from people angry about the raid. “We feel attacked.”

Today, Atlanta Stonewall Democrats, an LGBT advocacy group that claims about 1,900 people on its mailing lists, plans to announce its endorsement of Reed, a former state senator, for mayor. He also has been endorsed by state Rep. Karla Drenner, a DeKalb County Democrat who is the only openly gay member of the state Legislature.

Meanwhile, Borders, the City Council president, this month won the endorsement of Georgia Equality, a gay rights advocacy group with 17,000 members statewide.

Evidence of the value the candidates place on LGBT voters came in May, when all four leading candidates appeared together for the first time at a forum organized by several LGBT groups.

In recent years, gay and lesbian voters have flocked to intown neighborhoods such as Midtown, Poncey-Highland, Inman Park and Morningside, buying condos and lofts or refurbishing older homes. The two City Council districts that encompass those neighborhoods, Districts 2 and 6, now rank first and second, respectively, in the number of registered voters in the city. Since 2001, the number of registered voters in District 2 has exploded from 16,223 to 26,441.

“Clearly, there are lots of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters in Atlanta,” said Greg Lewis, a Georgia State University professor who studies LGBT voting trends. “It’s enough to be an important voting group. They are a swing vote.”

Until the Eagle raid, most LGBT voters pressed the candidates on issues such as crime and taxes. That’s changed, Alvear and other activists say. Eight Eagle employees were arrested on improper permit charges. Police say drugs have been sold in the bar and that sex acts have occurred there illegally. A co-owner of the bar has said police held patrons on the ground for an hour and taunted them with anti-gay slurs.

Borders said she’s troubled by talk that police did not contact the department’s LGBT liaison before the raid.

“Borders’ actions showed an unflinching dedication to professionalism and a willingness to question even those who have supported her,” Georgia Equality wrote in its endorsement of Borders, who was also endorsed by a union representing 1,100 Atlanta police officers.

Norwood, a city councilwoman, said at a debate Thursday that she would have an LGBT liaison in the mayor’s office. Write-in candidate Tiffany Brown has proposed all police officers receive sensitivity training. The Police Department has a diversity class for recruits, and officers have the option of further training once they’re on the force.

Reed says he’ll have an LGBT task force/advisory council in the mayor’s office. He also proposes an annual summit in Atlanta with local and national leaders focusing on policy issues important to the LGBT community.

Drenner said she’s supporting Reed because of his efforts in 2004 to lobby fellow lawmakers against a bill that allowed Georgia residents to vote in favor of banning same-sex marriage.

“It’s hard in a place like the [Legislature] to wave the diversity flag,” Drenner said. “I think [Reed] has the battle wounds for fighting for LGBT issues.”

Alvear and others are listening closely to see which candidate is willing to take some scars on the battle concerning what happened at the Eagle.

“The gay vote just got more important,” Alvear said.