Melissa Ross
Amid all the clergy news conferences and parliamentary maneuvers, the battle over Jacksonville’s HRO is also being fought via news release.
The latest comes from the Jacksonville Civic Council, a high-powered group of mostly Republican CEOs.
Chairman Ed Burr‘s missive addressing Mayor Lenny Curry and Council President Greg Anderson begins by reiterating that the Civic Council “supports a Human Rights Ordinance that protects all members of our community.”
Burr goes on to say:
“We commend Mayor Curry’s Executive Order prohibiting employment discrimination by the City and its vendors, for any reason including sexual orientation and gender identity. With this action, Mayor Curry has aligned the City of Jacksonville with virtually every large city and employer in the State of Florida. It is a strong first step. But the community cannot stop there.
“The place we call home should welcome all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. As the largest City in the region, we must lead by example and demonstrate that there is no place for discrimination in housing, employment and public services for any reason. Breaking down the walls of discrimination is never easy and requires strong leadership by our elected leaders. We encourage our elected leaders to work together to fully understand the scope and impact of Mayor Curry’s Executive Order and take clear and timely steps to eliminate discrimination and realize the goal of One City, One Jacksonville.”
There’s much to unpack in this statement.
For starters, Burr, president and CEO of the Jacksonville development company GreenPointe Holdings, is the ultimate Republican establishment player, recently nominated by Curry to the JEA board of directors. He is also chairman of FSU’s board of trustees. And as this website has reported, Burr is all in for Jeb Bush.
Furthermore, the Civic Council’s membership roster screams “Republican establishment” with local boldfaced names such as Susie Wiles, John Delaney, Gary Chartrand, Steve Halverson, and Kevin Hyde. They are the North Florida GOP heavyweights you might sometimes see derided by more Tea Party-leaning Republicans in recent years as “RINOs,” managerial class Republicans who very much want the HRO passed — for business reasons.
After the Council’s attempts to sideline two pieces of legislation on the issue of human rights in Jacksonville, Burr’s statement appears to be a full-throated dressing-down.
The Curry administration, much like the Brown administration before it, is caught between the Burr constituency, and the evangelical wing of the GOP (along with some evangelical African-American Democrats) when it comes to the complicated politics of LGBT equality in Jacksonville.
While at the national level the GOP has mostly moved on from the issue, the Civic Council and the JAX Chamber might soon make hay over the fact that the culture war over LGBT rights is causing angina among Chamber of Commerce types in Indiana, where this week the state legislature gave up on a protection measure. A survey by the tourism group Visit Indy suggested that the backlash may have cost at least $60 million in lost revenue to the state.
