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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Values: "A Big Increase in Attacks on Gays"

    This is disturbing:
    Hate crimes across Florida fell by 10 percent last year despite a big increase in attacks on gays, according to a report released Monday by state Attorney General Charlie Crist.
    "Attacks on gays show an increase". Perhaps our political leaders, like Mel Martinez, will stand up and say something about this hateful trend; then again ol' Mel is hardly in a position to do so since Mel wouldn't want to, you know, "pander to gays" or anything like that; after all,
    [t]he Martinez campaign has made the fight against what it calls "the radical homosexual lobby" central to its campaign. It's the subject of an attack ad -- removed ... under political pressure -- and a stinging mailer that criticizes rival Bill McCollum, a fellow conservative, for "pandering to gays" because he supported so-called hate crimes legislation in Congress.
    "Gay issues become focus of GOP primary battle". Indeed, in the eyes of some, Martinez's hateful rhetoric has marginalized any GOoPer's ability to speak out on this issue (to the extent they care), even ostensibly "moderate" GOP types like Crist:
    Why sexual-orientation incidents increased "is an important question," but one Crist said he could not answer.

    He rejected the notion that social tensions over gay rights could be related.

    "I don't accept that different points of view on political issues lead to a hate crime. We don't have to agree on everything in this country, but to take it to the next level and say it leads to criminal behavior is unacceptable."

    But [Heddy Peña, executive director of SAVE Dade, a human rights organization] links the targeting of gays and lesbians to "rhetoric that increases hostility, and given the rhetoric during the 2004 elections, this category will increase next year."

    Crist, a Republican, won't acknowledge any connection between the kind of anti-gay rights language used during the campaign by some conservative candidates and a social climate where violence toward gays is acceptable, because "that would point to his political party, and no one wants to be responsible for that," she said.
    It's just politics, right? See also "More gays targets of hate, state says".

6:54 AM

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