Sheriff’s LGBT supporters say anti-gay politics are marring yet another major Dallas election

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez appears on horseback Sunday, Sept. 21 during the 25th annual Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade. Two days earlier, The Dallas Morning News published an article in which Valdez was accused of trying “to promote the gay lifestyle.” For more Pride coverage, see Page 10 or go to www.dallasvoice.com.

Four years ago, less than a week before Dallas County voters went to the polls to elect a new sheriff, Republican candidate Danny Chandler publicly accused Democrat Lupe Valdez of promoting a gay political agenda.

Now, less than six weeks before voters decide whether to re-elect Valdez, supporters of the nation’s only lesbian Latina sheriff say she is again under attack for her sexual orientation.

Valdez’s LGBT supporters this week slammed The Dallas Morning News, as well as a source who backs Republican challenger Lowell Cannaday, for making an issue out of an anonymous questionnaire intended to foster dialogue about sexual orientation during cultural diversity training for sheriff’s department employees.

The questionnaire, distributed to 45 training participants from the sheriff’s department on Sept. 5, asked them to circle “agree” or “disagree” alongside statements including, “Homosexuality is a choice,” and, “The Bible states that homosexuality is immoral.”

The participants were told not to put their names on the questionnaires and were given the option of leaving them blank if they felt uncomfortable, according to representatives from the Resource Center of Dallas, which conducted the training. The questionnaires were then folded, collected, shuffled and redistributed before responses were used as a launching point for discussions about sexual orientation.

The questionnaire, developed by the Resource Center, has been used since at least 2002 in diversity training for other law enforcement agencies, including the Dallas Police Department. This marked the first time the questionnaire had been used at the sheriff’s department and the first time it has generated any complaints, according to representatives from the Resource Center and DPD.

Valdez never saw the questionnaire prior to the training but signed off on the Resource Center’s participation — which was also a first, said sheriff’s department spokeswoman Kim Leach.

On Sept. 19, The Dallas Morning News reported that there had been “several employee complaints” about the questionnaire. The DMN article, which appeared on the front page of the newspaper’s Metro section, quoted only one sheriff’s department employee, who hadn’t been a participant in the training.

Deputy Mike Ramirez, who serves as vice president of a police union that has endorsed Cannaday, told The Morning News he felt the sheriff’s department was using the questionnaire to “promote the gay lifestyle.”

Valdez’s LGBT supporters uniformly condemned it as an anti-LGBT political attack.

“This sort of low campaigning is exactly what we expect,” said Kirk McPike, Valdez’s campaign manager. “It’s the kind of race that the Republicans have run in the past, and in a lot of ways, the only kind of race they know how to run. We have a lot of faith that Dallas County voters will consider this race based on the real issues of the campaign. They weren’t swayed by that in 2004, and they’re not going to be swayed by it in 2008.”

A spokeswoman for Cannaday’s campaign didn’t return multiple phone calls seeking comment. Cannaday, through his campaign staff, previously has declined a request for a general interview with Dallas Voice.


Considering the source
It’s unclear who brought the questionnaire to the attention of The Morning News and Texas Watchdog, a Houston-based news Web site that has reported extensively about the issue.

“I can’t say because it’s a source of mine,” DMN staff writer Kevin Krause said when asked who’d contacted him. Krause declined further comment.

Matt Pulle, a former Dallas Observer staffer who now writes for Texas Watchdog, indicated that a copy of the questionnaire had been submitted anonymously.

“I can say I didn’t talk to Cannaday,” Pulle said.

Ramirez, vice president of the Dallas chapter of the Latino Peace Officers Association, wouldn’t say whether he’d contacted the media about the questionnaire. Texas Watchdog didn’t quote any sheriff’s department employees in its coverage.

Ramirez maintained that four sheriff’s department employees voiced concerns to him about the questionnaire.

“Some of the people felt they [department officials] were trying to push the gay agenda onto them,” Ramirez told Dallas Voice. “It was not politically motivated, I assure you that.”

The Latino Peace Officers Association endorsed Chandler in 2004 and has endorsed Cannaday this year. However, The DMN article about the questionnaire failed to mention those endorsements.

Jesse Garcia, president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, called Ramirez a “political operative.” Stonewall Democrats, North Texas’ largest LGBT political group, has endorsed Valdez.

Garcia, who also serves as president of the local gay chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he took personal offense to the statements by Ramirez in The DMN article.

“It pisses me off so much because for the last two years, I’ve been working so hard to build bridges between the Hispanic community and the gay community,” Garcia said.

Denis Dison, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which is also backing Valdez, said the incident “looks and smells like a political smear.”

The Victory Fund, the nation’s largest LGBT political action committee, is dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT candidates at all levels of government.

Dison said the majority of fair-minded people don’t have a problem voting for qualified, openly LGBT candidates, unless they are made to fear some sort of “anti-Christian, pro-homosexual agenda.”

“Openly gay candidates face this all the time,” Dison said. “It’s a tried and true political tactic.”

Dison added that he believes the attack is a sign of desperation on the part of Cannaday supporters.

“We will be asking people to step up and fight back against stuff like this,” Dison said. “It’s something where the community has to stand up and say, ‘No , you can talk about her record. That’s all fair game, but to suggest that her sexual orientation disqualifies her for this job is beyond the pale.’”

Dison said DMN coverage of the questionnaire was reminiscent of a front-page article the newspaper published prior to last year’s runoff for Dallas mayor. The article highlighted Victory Fund-endorsed candidate Ed Oakley’s sexual orientation.

“This is like deja vu all over again,” Dison said. “[It is] so obviously gay-baiting that I can’t imagine editors letting something like that through. I’ve not seen in any other community a high-profile daily like The Dallas Morning News seemingly going after a candidate for sexual orientation.”

One source accused Krause of quoting her out of context in The DMN article.

Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, Dallas County’s director of human resources, said she wasn’t referring to the questionnaire, which she hadn’t seen, when she told Krause that employees generally shouldn’t be asked about their religious beliefs.

“My response was in reference to, ‘Would there be any instance in Dallas County where our management staff would delve into someone’s religious background while we’re in the hiring process?’” Mauldin-Taylor said. “I think the way it was reported was out of context because I was not referring to the survey [questionnaire]. I was referring to just a manager hiring or interviewing an employee.”

Mauldin-Taylor said her department conducts similar training for county employees from other departments that covers both religion and sexual orientation.

Another source contacted by Texas Watchdog questioned Pulle’s reporting tactics. Dotty Griffith, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said when she declined comment on the questionnaire, Pulle “got kind of hostile on me.”

“I felt like he had a major agenda,” Griffith said. “I just don’t like to respond when I don’t’ have all the facts and I feel like there’s a possibility I’m being set up.”

Both Pulle and DMN Editor Bob Mong defended their coverage.

Pulle said he personally supports full equality for LGBT people and opposes all forms of anti-gay discrimination.

“We think the survey itself is unusual and asks some questions that are intrusive and that deviate from standard diversity training,” Pulle said. “I think it’s very, very questionable and I think it’s newsworthy when you ask public employees what their thoughts are about the Bible.”

The recently launched Texas Watchdog describes itself as “a news Web site and training center that scrutinizes the actions of government agencies, bureaucracies and politicians in Texas.”

According to the Web site, Texas Watchdog’s startup phase is being funded by the Sam Adams Alliance, a nonprofit right-wing group based in Chicago. Pulle’s 90-day assignment at Texas Watchdog reportedly ends on Election Day.

Mong, meanwhile, said reporting Valdez’s sexual orientation can’t be defined as gay-baiting because she’s been open about the fact that she’s a lesbian for several years. Asked why the newspaper hasn’t previously reported on the questionnaire, Mong said this marks the first time it’s entered the public domain. Asked whether his reporter was used for political purposes, Mong said he didn’t think so.

“All the people we have covering a campaign are experienced reporters,” Mong said. “They understand that in campaigns that the issues are rough and tumble, and they know how to sift and winnow through that information.”

Mong also dismissed the idea that the newspaper’s coverage of the sheriff’s race is influenced by the editorial board’s all-but-certain decision to endorse Cannaday.

“Most reporters would jump off the top of the building if they felt there was any relationship between the editorial position and their ability to cover an issue,” Mong said. “It just doesn’t happen. They’re just totally separated and they’re very professional about it. I’m not saying the public always understands that, but that’s certainly the reality of the situation.”


Questioning the questionnaire
Krause reported in The DMN article that a Dallas police spokesperson was unable to confirm the Resource Center’s claims that the same questionnaire had been used in diversity classes at DPD for years. And Pulle reported on Texas Watchdog that another DPD spokesperson denied that the questionnaire had been used by the department.

However, DPD Lt. Vernon Hale later confirmed that the questionnaire has been used in diversity training for new recruits at the police department. Hale said the confusion stemmed from the fact that the training is conducted by the Resource Center and the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, not DPD.

“Unfortunately we were not familiar with what instruments were being used,” Hale said. “However it will continue to be their block of instruction to facilitate as they deem appropriate. My understanding is that it [the questionnaire] is not used for data collection but to determine what direction to take the class.”

While Pulle posted an update on Texas Watchdog saying that the questionnaire had been used at DPD, The Morning News didn’t publish a follow-up article.

In his update, Pulle acknowledged that “it would certainly seem unfair to criticize Sheriff Valdez for administering a survey that has been used in other departments.”

John Wimberley, a former board member for the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said he led diversity training on sexual orientation at DPD for 10 years, beginning in 1993. Although its exact origin is unclear, Wimberley said the questionnaire was first used after the Resource Center began to assist with the training in 2002.

Wimberley said diversity training for new recruits at the police department has been a critical part of the local gay rights movement due to the historically poor relationship between law enforcement and the LGBT community.

Wimberley said that because the questionnaires are mixed up and redistributed after being filled out, anonymity is guaranteed. He added that he feels the questions about the Bible and religion are appropriate because the subjects inevitably come up anyway since most anti-LGBT prejudices are rooted in Scripture.

“What a great, clear way to get people to understand that their views are quite different from their neighbors,” Wimberley said of the questionnaire. “It was a wonderful, wonderful mechanism.”

Griffith, the ACLU spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether the questionnaire might impinge upon employees’ religious freedoms or violate the separation between church and state.

“The issues raised by the questionnaire used in diversity training at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and the controversy it has generated are the sorts of issues that interest us very much,” Griffith said. “But I have to be honest and say we at ACLU-Texas just don’t have time right now to give the matter the kind of careful review it deserves before we can comment.”

One local gay attorney who specializes in employment law, Rob Wiley, says diversity training classes almost always ask provocative questions in an attempt to get participants to re-examine stereotypes.

“Given that the so-called ‘questionnaire’ is anonymous and intended to provoke discussion in a structured diversity training class, I see absolutely no legal issue with the survey,” Wiley said.

While DGLA and the Resource Center have conducted training for DPD since the early 1990s, this marked the first time that either organization had participated in training at the sheriff’s department.

Rafael McDonnell, strategic communications and programs manager for the Resource Center, said he contacted a representative from the sheriff’s department in June and offered to assist with the agency’s existing cultural diversity training.

Leach, the sheriff’s department’s PIO, said although the Resource Center wasn’t involved, the cultural diversity training already included sexual orientation. The subject of sexual orientation accounts for roughly one hour of the eight-hour cultural diversity training, Leach said.

The cultural diversity training is mandated for all law enforcement officers in the state by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards. Tim Braaten, executive director of TCLEOS, said the commission outlines curriculum for the training, which includes sexual orientation. However, the commission doesn’t dictate individual agencies’ lesson plans.

“They’re expected to develop their own lesson plan to achieve these goals and curriculum,” said Braaten, who worked as a police chief for 25 years.

Braaten said the questionnaire doesn’t raise red flags with him, and he noted it could be equally helpful in preparing officers to deal with Christian counterprotesters at a gay-rights rally.

“I think that what’s important is to make sure that cops get exposed to and have time to pre-plan all the kinds of views they may run into,” Braaten said. “That doesn’t sound to me like something that someone should take offense to.”

Cece Cox, associate executive director at the Resource Center, said complaints about the questionnaire serve to underscore the fact that the training is needed. However, Cox said the Resource Center is reviewing the questionnaire and would be willing to consider changes.

Leach said Valdez plans to meet with Ramirez and others who might be concerned about the questionnaire for an open discussion and exchange of ideas.


   
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 26, 2008.