Heinbaugh surprised by Leppert’s response to gay marriage question

The Dallas Morning News continues to spin my recent story about Tom Leppert’s first year in office in favor of the Dallas mayor. (The DMN has long been one of Leppert’s biggest supporters). DMN Metro columnist Steve Blow recently had this to day on one of the newspaper’s blogs:

Yes, apparently you can be an establishment, Republican, Southern Baptist, gay friendly mayor of Dallas.

To his credit, at least Blow didn’t make the same mistake as DMN reporter Dave Levinthal, who recently suggested on another blog that Dallas Voice had declared Leppert gay-friendly. Blow merely reprinted our headline, “A year later, Dallas mayor deemed ‘gay-friendly.’” Note that “gay-friendly” is in quotations, because it was taken from a statement in the story by Patti Fink, president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

Anyhow, I thought readers of Instant Tea might be interested in Leppert’s response to a question about the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. At the end of my interview with him for the story, I asked whether he had any thoughts about the ruling, to which he replied, “No.” I then asked whether he would support gay marriage in Texas. I didn’t include his response in the story, but you can check it out after the jump.

“I don’t know, to be truthful with you,” Leppert said.”It hasn’t come up. It hasn’t been an issue that I’ve spent any time on. I don’t know. I’d probably have to give it some thought, to be truthful with you. I would see pieces on both sides, to be truthful with you, so I haven’t thought about it.”

Can we read anything into the fact that Leppert said “to be truthful with you” three times in his response to the question? I don’t know, to be truthful with you.

Chris Heinbaugh, Leppert’s openly gay chief of staff, later told me he was surprised by the mayor’s answer. In other words, Heinbaugh would’ve expected the mayor to say he was opposed to gay marriage.