Mayor's stance ignites debate

The Fresno Bee ^ | August 26, 2004 | Doug Hoagland

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Alan Autry, Fresno's actor-turned-mayor, slips into a new public role this Sunday: cheerleader for the idea that marriage should unite a man and a woman and not homosexual couples.

Autry will speak on the grounds of City Hall in support of the traditional definition of marriage at an event called Marriage Commitment Day. He also will conduct a ceremony in which heterosexual, married couples can renew their marriage vows.

Autry says traditional marriage is a "core principle" that has allowed "civilization to become civilized to the degree that we see it. It is therefore a city issue."

Gays and others say Autry is at best naive and at worst flat wrong. They also say the City Hall ceremony mixes religion and government and represents denial of civil rights to gay citizens.

Sunday's event -- and a counter ceremony at a church to celebrate the vows of gay and straight couples -- will push Fresno into a combustible national debate over gay marriage. Fueled by competing and passionately held views on religion, politics and sexuality, the debate has become about whether gays have the right to the legal and social benefits afforded by state-sanctioned marriage. San Francisco officials advanced the debate this year when they issued about 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Their marriages, however, were annulled when the California Supreme Court ruled this month that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority when the city issued the licenses.

Such legal arguments are not as important to some people in the central San Joaquin Valley who see homosexual behavior in more black-and-white terms. It's sin to them, reflecting the region's conservative religious roots.

Autry mostly steers clear of such talk, saying only that some Christian faiths consider homosexuality a sin.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Fresno ping!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

And one same-sex couple from Fresno who married in San Francisco says Autry is misusing his bully pulpit as mayor. "I think he's a bubba," says Adams Holland, a Fresno restaurateur and designer whose partner is Tim Woods. "I think he's acting foolishly. I don't think he quite understands his role in the community."

Autry says he has received unprecedented "hate rhetoric" from "strident" gays since he started planning Sunday's ceremony. But he does not consider them representative of their community, and he aims most of his rhetoric away from them. His target is Newsom.

In Autry's analysis, the San Francisco mayor forced him to do something.

"By going into [San Francisco] City Hall and marrying people of the same sex illegally ... what went out was a challenge to all mayors to declare their positions," Autry says.

"We're all going to, unfortunately, have to make our positions known on this."

[tame]

Thank you :o)

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

I think he has a future in state politics. Seems like a decent guy.