1 MARY GRAY BLACK: "To God be the glory," is how Commissioner Mary Gray Black lauded her March 2005 election to the Largo City Commission. The Ronda Storms of Pinellas County was actually recruited for that campaign after the city considered adding employment and housing protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals in 2003. During the campaign, she vowed not to vote for anything that was "contrary to God's will."
Black went after Stanton from the git-go; in 2005, she picked a public fight with him over a $75 check she tried to write to the city. This is Black's second go-round on the commission, and the St. Petersburg Times' editorial writers had a long memory when they wrote, "When Mary Gray Black served on the Largo City Commission in the 1970s and '80s, she was known for slowing commission meetings to a crawl as she lectured her fellow commissioners about policies and procedures or chewed interminably on minor issues."
In the matter of Stanton, however, Black did not slow anything down. She demanded a meeting to fire him less than a week after he revealed his transgendered status.
One more fun fact: Her city resume lists her as a board member of the (we're-sure-it's-misnamed) Florida Association for the Restoration of Ethics.
2 BRUCE McMANUS: First and foremost, the ardent anti-civil rights crusader makes the list because he was the one who recruited Mary Gray Black to run for Largo City Commission in 2005. He also led efforts against a Largo human rights ordinance in 2003. In 2005, he wrote to the city to protest the inclusion of sexual orientation in a city tolerance statement, saying, "You are not just acknowledging that there are acceptable homosexual, bisexual and other combinations of sexually deviant activity, but are approving these behaviors."
3 PASTOR RON SANDERS: "If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he'd want him terminated,'' the good Rev from the 30-member Lighthouse Baptist Church said at the meeting at which Stanton was fired. Because, you know, Our Lord was all up in the Human Resources stuff. Like in Luke 4:32, where Jesus said, "Thou shalt employ staffing best practices and strategies along with cost-effective recruitment and retention techniques."
Pastor Sanders also referred to a post-surgery Stanton as neither a he nor a she but "an it." Of course, Pastor Sanders meant this in the most Christian possible way.
(To receive the Word of God, Sanders-style, on Sundays, the Lighthouse Baptist Church is at 10539 122nd Ave. in Largo.)
4 HARRIET CROZIER: Another of the votes to fire Stanton, Crozier has had a low-key career on the Largo City Commission, serving from 1993-99 and winning office again in 2001. She served another term in 2003 because she was unopposed. Crozier retired as the office manager of a cemetery in late 2006. Crozier has not been an outspoken critic of Stanton's, although she gave him the lowest marks on the commission on his 2000 evaluation. The reason? She faulted his public relations skills. "We're growing," she said at a meeting quoted in the Times. "We're on the map, and I think that needs to come out more."
Be careful what you wish for.
5 GIGI ARNTZEN: The longtime Largo volunteer was elected only a year ago, with a campaign that emphasized hurricane preparedness. She won the Times endorsement in her campaign, with the paper calling the retired office manager "an excellent alternative" for Largo voters. When she launched her campaign (her second, as ironically she lost an earlier bid to Mary Gray Black by a handful of votes), Arntzen told the Times, "I think I can bring a positive image back to the commission."
6 GAY GENTRY: The highly educated retired schoolteacher was a supporter of Stanton's in 2005, when he came under fire from then-Mayor Bob Jackson. Gentry gave Stanton good and excellent ratings and recommended a raise for him.
During a 2005 commission discussion about a planned city mission statement that would include tolerance based on sexual orientation, Gentry said, "In August of 2003, I tried to point out that our attempts at diversity had to do with the U.S. Constitution. Obviously I didn't get anything across at that time. A neighbor is not defined as someone who shares your morals, economic status or beliefs. A neighbor is someone who you despise and yet act neighborly. You need to show up for work every day. You need to follow the rules, and you need to do the best work you can do, and you need to be neighborly."
Unless, of course, you are a transsexual.
7 ANDY GUYETTE: Guyette is an Air Force veteran and engineer who — like his colleague Gentry — has an advanced college degree. He first ran for Largo City Commission in 1995, losing. In his 2005 campaign, he promised to be a financial watchdog and said he opposed the inclusion of tolerance toward people based on sexual orientation in the city's mission statement, adding that he did believe in "love thy neighbor."
Like Crozier, Gentry, Black and Arntzen, Guyette said he had lost confidence in Stanton's ability to lead the city in casting his vote to fire him.
8 CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE LARGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: The Largo Police Department is not getting rave reviews for manhandling Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith and arresting her for distribution of pamphlets at City Hall. The nation's two largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights organizations were zipping e-mails about the thuggish move to supporters and media by the week's end. But the department is not new to infamy; as recently as 2000, it was at the center of a scandal about how some in the department used its youth Explorer program as a "dating service," according to a newspaper account at that time. Several officers had dated or screwed some of the teenage female Explorers, and the ensuing publicity led one officer and the chief to resign. Prosecutors at the time took a look at all that Blue Lust but did not bring any charges. The statute of limitations had expired.
