Gay Today: World

Religious Fanatics Fail to “Take Back Miami-Dade”

Compiled By GayToday

Miami, Florida--An alliance of radical religious right groups calling itself "Take Back Miami-Dade" has failed to gather the needed number of signatures to place the question of repealing an amendment to Miami-Dade's Human Rights Ordinance that protects lesbians and gay men from discrimination on this fall's ballot.

The group missed its deadline for filing 32,582 signatures - 4% of the voters--with the Miami- Dade County Commission on Friday, according to PFAW Florida Director Lisa Versaci.

In February, fifteen months after the Miami-Dade County Commission's historic vote to extend non-discrimination protections to lesbians and gay men, the Miami-Dade Christian Coalition and the Florida Family Association had been granted county approval to begin gathering signatures in order to repeal the protective law.

At the time, Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way, had said:

"The Human Rights Ordinance is there to protect everyone's basic rights to fair treatment. Voters will see this repeal initiative for what it is--a giant step backward --and affirm Miami-Dade's rich tradition of diversity and mutual respect."

Lisa Versaci, PFAW's Florida Director, had warned that the signature gatherers would be likely to use unfair and deceptive tactics to induce voters to sign the petitions, as they'd done since the beginning of their efforts and in prior campaigns.

Miami Beach's veteran gay activist Bob Kunst, surmized that the city had been tied in knots by the Elian Gonzalez controversy and that the religious right's attempts to gather signatures had run smack into Elian. "Nobody is interested in anything else," he said.

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Referring yesterday to the religious right's failure Ms. Versaci said:

"What this shows is that there is no constituency for intolerance in Miami-Dade. Any candidate or campaign who is organizing on an agenda of hate, bigotry or division would be wise to re-evaluate their strategy."