June 15, 2005.
It was one of the more notorious moments in recent memory at the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners' dais—and there've been a lot of those.
Then-Commissioner Ronda Storms, a notoriously staunch conservative, brought a nasty little proposal to the table.
"Board members, I move that we adopt a policy that Hillsborough County government abstain from acknowledging, promoting and participating in Pride recognition and events. Little g, little p." Storms said.
Then-Commissioner Kathy Castor, who it's now a Democratic Congresswoman, was the only one to vote against it.
"I think it's inappropriate for government to promote discrimination," Castor said.
The two other Democrats on the board, Commissioners Thomas Scott (who is again running to be a commissioner) and Kevin White (who lost reelection in the wake of scandal) voted in favor of it.
Eleven years, to the day, later, County Commissioner Kevin Beckner drew a connection between that act of bigotry and the horrific events that unfolded Sunday a Pulse nightclub in Orlando in the hopes his colleagues would, finally, support the raising of the LGBT flag outside the County Building in downtown Tampa from June 16 throusgh June 30 this year, a measure all but one of the commissioners present voted in favor of.
"This flag, to the LGBT community, is a symbol of peace and solidarity. For a long time, government, and even to this day, refused to recognize LGBT people as part of our communities," Beckner said. "As we have gone through this tragedy, yes, these individuals that were massacred, were Americans. But a majority of them were LGBT Americans. These were not individuals that just happened to be in a random open place and were victims of a terrorist attack. This was a targeted terrorist attack against an LGBT establishment. This is a hate crime. It's an act of terrorism but it's a hate crime."
He placed the item on the agenda in the wake of Sunday's mass shooting, which left 49 dead and 53 injured.
"Board members, I don't bring this agenda item forward today to lament our shameful past on this anniversary day," he said Wednesday morning. "I brought it forward to enlighten you and the public about the direct correlation between the actions that the BOCC took on June 15th, 2005 and the actions a cold-blooded killer took on June 12th, 2016 in our community of Orlando. While both actions on the surface appear to be very different, the reality is, they're very similar and they're interconnected. Both actions were inspired and were rooted in the ideology of bigotry, intolerance and hate toward the LGBT community."
The major difference, he said, was that Sunday's massacre has produced "a sickening, heartbreaking, yet measurable result: the senseless death and loss of life of 49 innocent, beautiful lives," at least one of which, 24-year-old banker Chris SanFeliz, was from Tampa.
Hillsborough's anti-LGBT ordinance, which it repealed in 2013, obviously didn't have such an immediate, brutal, visual impact, he said, but it did help keep alive a spirit of hate for a population that promotes physical and emotional harm against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.
"We will never know and realize the impact [of] the action the BOCC took 11 years ago, the number of youth who were bullied, the number of incidents of community and self-inflicted violence, not to mention the negative economic impact that resulted when this board, elected to represent all of the citizens of Hillsborough County, sanctioned hate, bigotry and discrimination of the LGBT community," he said.
While some commissioners expressed concern that the item was put on the agenda so shortly before the meeting, all but Commissioner Ken Hagan supported it. Commissioner Stacy White was absent, but by our estimate he would have been a "no" vote as well.
The commission rejected Beckner's proposal to write a letter to Governor Rick Scott asking that he do the same, but did approve starting the discussion of recognizing June as Pride Month from June of 2017 forward (they'll take that up at a July meeting).
Earlier in the meeting, members of the public spoke in support of as well as against waving the flag.
Terry Kemple, one of the better-known Jesus-rode-dinaosaurs types in these parts (dude ran for Hillsborough County School Board several years back—imagine if he was the one picking your kids' textbooks) complained that there wasn't enough prior notice for the discussion.
He then, not un-speciously, compared the Pride Flag debate to the debate over the Confederate flag last year (which also, oddly enough, stemmed from a gut-wrenching mass shooting that targeted a minority group).
“It wasn't that long ago that you all voted to take down a plaque that had the Confederate Flag on it because it might offend some people. I can assure you that if you vote to raise the rainbow flag above County Center, it will offend some people.”
Allies showed up as well to urge the commission to be thoughtful about LGBT quality.
Terrence Wolfe, chair of Hillsborough County Human Relations Board, said the county needs to look out for the so-called "pastor protection" legislation state lawmakers passed earlier this year.
“I understand the legislature here in Florida has begun what may be a creeping attack on our and other similar laws by enacting legislation this year purportedly to insulate certain lines of industry from their applicability,” he said, and he urged them not to enforce the law.
In the end, Beckner and the fight equality won and Storms and bigotry lost—a small but significant silver lining in the wake of Sunday's tragic events.
The Pride flag will fly at the County Center through June 30.
This article appears in Jun 16-23, 2016.