A.G. Gancarski
Twenty years ago, former Jacksonville mayors Tommy Hazouri and John Delaney were linked when the lifelong Democrat crossed party lines to endorse Republican Delaney against a fellow Democrat, Jake Godbold.
Hazouri paid a price for that. He languished in the political wilderness. But Hazouri, just like Delaney, have been willing to go against the grain of their own political parties when necessary.
One issue on which both believe that it’s necessary to take a bold stance: the Human Rights Ordinance.
As Delaney said Friday, he’s still committed.
“I just met with a group on it yesterday,” he said, and Delaney is “willing to do whatever it takes to help” on it.
He “counted 10 votes” on at least a modified version of the HRO. A “fully inclusive” version, meanwhile, might be more of an open question.
“There’s work to do with the identity component,” he said, adding that “television normalized the popular perception” of gay people, and may do so sooner than later with the transgendered.
Delaney cited the groundswell of support for gay marriage, which is now the law nationwide, as significant.
“There’s never been a social issue with that level of change.”
That said, those agitating for the HRO, such as Hazouri, might want to draw distinctions. There is a certain threshold in the “chain of commerce” that is meaningful; a corporation might have different standards applied to it than a “mom and pop.” That does not extend, Delaney said, to restaurants, cabs, and other “public conveyances.”
Hazouri’s assistant, Jenny Busby, said, “Tommy plans on sponsoring an inclusive HRO in the fall but the first issue to focus on is the budget and public safety.”
The reality that will affect any bill that ultimately gets through this council seems obvious. It’s going to need language that doesn’t leave small businesses worried that they can be shut down by what opponents will frame as a subjective process. It’s also going to have to leave religious conservatives some room to save face on it. Whether that can be done inside an inclusive HRO framework or not is a major question.
After the bill went down in 2012, there was no more public movement on it. There was no “getting to yes” moment initiated. In that vacuum, a narrative sprouted up that Mayor Alvin Brown was actually opposed to an HRO, a narrative reported on in detail.
Delaney, and others, say that Lenny Curry is more moderate than his campaign persona let on. That augurs well for an HRO being doable. The problem proponents will encounter, however, is how to push it through without waking up the social conservatives, and making the debate an exercise in heated polemics like it was three years ago, and as it has been in so many other cities.
