Hopefuls talk tolerance

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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One of Mayor-President Kip Holden’s rare setbacks during the past four years was his failure to persuade the Metro Council to adopt a resolution advocating tolerance for people from all walks of life, including those of various sexual orientations.

“One Baton Rouge” was the rallying cry of Holden when he was elected the city’s first African-American mayor. 

But Holden’s proposed “One Baton Rouge” resolution fell one council vote short of passage last year, largely due to controversy over acceptance of nonheterosexual orientations.

Holden brought up the issue during a debate at Southern University last week, chastising his three opponents for drawing a line in the sand when it came to sexual orientation bias.

“Some of you may know that I’ve been trying to push this whole process of ‘One Baton Rouge.’ That simply means we should learn to respect and deal with each other regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation,” said Holden, who is a Democrat.

“But there are some sitting up here who say that when you include sexual orientation, you’ve gone too far,” Holden said. 

All three of his opponents made it clear that that they don’t condone homosexuality and other sexual orientations out of the mainstream.

“Those folks don’t agree with my lifestyle. Why should I agree with theirs?” said Republican Wayne Carter.

A Metro councilman and a businessman, Carter was present when Holden’s resolution came up last year, but he opted not to vote for it. Carter made it clear during last week’s debate that he still opposes the resolution.

“If your sexual preference is whatever, if your church preference is whatever, if your social preference is whatever, the beauty about living in America is that I don’t have to agree with it. If you want to do it, that’s your business,” Carter said.

“But the mayor put in a resolution that we had to accept all these things, and I disagreed with it. And I disagree with it today,” Carter said.

Carter questioned Holden’s commitment to “acceptance,” noting that his administration opted to give the Baton Rouge Area Chamber $500,000 in funding this year, but gave the Black Chamber of Commerce only $80,000.

Republican Dan Kyle said he opposes the One Baton Rouge resolution because he fears it might help legalize gay marriage.