Alabama's 'political punching bags': Campaign rhetoric concerns LGBTQ community

LGBTQ issues had been largely absent in the gubernatorial campaigns leading up to the June 5 primary.

Then two incidents this week — one involving the governor, one her opponent — brought them back to the fore.

That made a number of LGBTQ activists wonder if they were about to be used as political footballs, particularly amid the use of language that seemed aimed at marginalizing them.

"To use those same dog whistles to force this political debate, it's kind of similar to the way Roy Moore tried to make the U.S. Senate race about abortion," said Alex Smith, executive director of Equality Alabama, which works for LGBTQ rights.

Moore, a former Alabama chief justice, also targeted transgender individuals in his unsuccessful 2017 campaign for U.S. Senate, at one point saying "the transgenders don't have rights." But until this week, Democratic and Republican candidates for governor — and their surrogates — had avoided social issues generally and LGBTQ issues in particular, preferring instead to talk about matters like education and the economy.

That changed Tuesday. In news conferences held around the state, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Dawson accused Gov. Kay Ivey of spending money on a group called Free2Be for “the promotion and normalization of gay and transgender lifestyles among Alabama children.”

"Conservative values have been betrayed in secret with almost $1 million coming from the pockets of hard working Alabamians," Dawson said in a statement.

The money, an earmarked federal grant, aims to provide counseling and support to LGBT individuals who have experienced bullying, domestic violence or sexual assault.

Ivey’s office noted the purpose of the grant but also distanced the governor from Free2Be, saying its views “do not represent Governor Ivey’s views.”

Later that day, Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, the first openly gay member of the Alabama Legislature, tweeted that she “had heard for years” that Ivey was a lesbian and called for someone to "out" Ivey. The tweet relied on hearsay, and Ivey’s camp called it a "personal attack" that was "disgraceful."

"It's a disgusting lie being pushed by a paid left wing liberal political operative," Ivey said in a statement released by her campaign Wednesday. "There is absolutely no truth to it. It's false. It's wrong. It's a baldfaced lie. And I'm not going to let them get away with it."

Messages seeking comment were left for Todd on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ivey's opponents in the gubernatorial race — both Democratic and Republican — largely stayed away from Todd's comments Wednesday and Thursday.

Todd's action drew criticism from within the LGBT community. The board of One Orlando Alliance, founded in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in that city in 2016, withdrew an offer to hire Todd as executive director on Thursday. In a statement, Jennifer Foster, the board's chair and a co-founder of the group, said Todd's comments are "not aligned" with the organization's values.

"We strongly believe that coming out is a personal choice, and we do not support involuntarily outing, ”the statement said.

Equality Alabama said in a statement Wednesday that Todd's comments about Ivey's "real or perceived orientation present rumors as fact and are reckless and unacceptable."

“It’s really disappointing to see someone you’ve looked up to so long engage in these schoolyard tactics,” Smith said in an interview.

But Ivey's campaign received criticism for use of the word "disgusting," which a number of LGBT individuals saw as an attack on their own lives. 

“I had a visceral reaction,” Smith said. “I remembered all those times in my life when I was made to feel disgusting. As a queer man, I’ve faced this my entire life in Alabama.”

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey denies being gay in interview with WVTM 13

In response to emailed questions about the campaign's use of the word "disgusting" — which the Ivey campaign repeated in a campaign email Thursday morning — the campaign referred to an interview Ivey gave Wednesday with Birmingham television station WVTM.

The governor's message in the interview was mixed. Ivey at one point said the word "only applies to the nature of the testimony. Telling lies is disgusting."

But later, Ivey seemed to say that the suggestion she was gay was in itself an attack.  

"The bottom line is (Todd's) tweet is an absolute attack on my good name and my good character," Ivey told the television station. "Everybody comes into the world with their name and leave the world with their name. My name is important for me to protect. I’m telling the truth and other people should too." 

The Rev. Lynn Hopkins, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery and a board member of Montgomery Pride United, said Wednesday Ivey's response showed her "personal contempt for LGBTQ citizens in Alabama."

"The whole idea that 'gay is an insult' I saw in Ivey's comments about how this is all a smear tactic from liberals," she said. "For progressives, it would be tantamount to saying ‘Well, I wonder if Kay Ivey is Presbyterian.’"

In the WVTM interview, Ivey emphasized her opposition to same-sex marriage and mostly avoided a question about her message to LGBTQ individuals.

"I don’t agree with their agenda or their lifestyle, but they are citizens and they have certain rights," she said. "I understand that. Everybody ought to tell the truth and tell facts, not rumors and lies."

Alabama is the only state in the union where a majority of adults oppose same-sex marriage (though that number has declined from 59 percent in 2014 to 51 percent today) and bills targeting discrimination against LGBTQ people have gone nowhere. Last year, the Alabama Legislature passed — and Ivey signed — a bill that allowed religious agencies to deny adoptions to same-sex couples.

"The only ‘disgusting’ thing this dust-up lays bare is that our leaders in Alabama, and those who aspire to lead us, continue to use LGBTQ people as political punching bags," David Dinelli, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement Wednesday. "Our public officials should focus their energy on ending discrimination and ensuring that all people have the same access to supportive schools, health care, employment and housing." 

For activists, the use of language to make LGBTQ individuals seem like others — such as the use of transgender as a noun or the idea that people are "accused" of being gay — needs to be avoided. 

"Homosexuality is not a behavior," Hopkins said. "This is just an attribute. Celibate people who never have contact with another human being still have sexual orientation. It's the same way you would not respond to someone being 'accused' of having Latino heritage."