Turns Out, My Mayor is a Two-faced, Glad-handing, Anti-LGBTQ+ Bigot
Dean Sawyer claimed he’s got our back. Then, behind our backs, he keeps posting hateful garbage.
We knew Mayor Sawyer was a man of somewhat dubious character. Or, perhaps a less judgmental way to put it is that he lacks genuine empathy for the LGBTQ+ community at large and hasn’t a single clue as to what it actually means to be queer or trans.
Those personal shortcomings would be forgivable, if he were actually making an effort to open his mind and heart.
A couple of years ago, we put in a request to hoist the rainbow flag above City Hall here in Newport, OR.
“If we flew the rainbow flag,” Sawyer joked to the City Council, “wouldn’t we have to fly the Confederate flag, too?”
That the mayor actually thought this remark was in any way astute or remotely glib was distressing enough. That anyone — mayor, or average jane or joe—would equivocate the rainbow (being a symbol of love, affirmation, and acceptance) with a banner originally designed to represent the rights of separatist states to own and enslave human beings ups this offense to an entirely new level of awful.
