As you know by now, the Hillsborough County Commission repealed its eight-year-old ban on promoting or sponsoring gay pride events yesterday, which according to one of the Christian conservatives who railed against the repeal said, means the county has now lost "the favor of God."
A couple of random thoughts on the day's proceedings nearly 24 hours later: After just a few of the 38 scheduled speakers went to the microphone, it became apparent that seemingly every person who identified themselves from someplace along the eastern or southern part of Hillsborough (such as Valrico, Riverview or Brandon) was against repealing the measure, while nearly everyone who identified themselves from Tampa supported the repeal. Although this has been evident in the 13 years I've lived here (and obviously there are people in the city who favored the status quo and vice versa in the county), there really is a pretty dramatic fissure between the sensibilities of this very large county and its largest city.…
[ Read more ]