Guess Whose Political Forums San Antonio Mayor Taylor Has Been Skipping
Mayor Ivy Taylor has earned a tense relationship with San Antonio's LGBTQ community.
The rift dates back to the 2013 battle over an equal rights ordinance here, when homophobic and transphobic backlash from religious-right groups failed to stop City Council from passing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While Taylor, then a District 2 councilwoman, wasn’t as forceful as some of her conservative council colleagues in opposing the ordinance (like former councilwoman Elisa Chan, who remained unapologetic after being caught on tape calling trans people “disgusting”), her stance against protections for the LGBTQ community was unapologetic.
"I will not sacrifice my core values and beliefs for political gain," Taylor, who often talks about her Christian faith, said at the time. "If that was the expectation for me as a black woman, you’ve got the wrong sister in this seat." It was a defensive, sharp-elbowed response. Later, when she was running for her first full term as mayor, she told a crowd gathered at John Hagee’s Cornerstone megachurch: "I do not feel we should have even been debating that issue … I thought it was a waste of time."
Not long after, many in the community started calling her “Poison Ivy.”
Robert Salcido is among those who have tried to ease that tension during Taylor's first term, serving on an LGBT advisory group the mayor would rarely even meet with. His and others' push a city office that would actually receive and investigate allegations of discrimination eventually paid off — sort of. Months before her election in 2015, Taylor created the skeleton-crew Office of Diversity and Inclusion at City Hall, which advocates like Salcido are still pushing to make more effective (like, say, giving it subpoena power so it can actually investigate things).
Read more: http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/04/06/guess-whose-political-forums-mayor-taylor-has-been-skipping
