[img]1915|right|Mr. O'Leary||no_popup[/img]After the City Council was prodded two weeks ago – – by a woman who identified herself as the mother of Boy Scouts – to commend the organization for its recent decision to accept gay Scouts, Mayor Jeff Cooper wrote a letter of support.
However, at this week’s meeting, Councilman Mehaul O’Leary declared his objection to endorsement of certain language in the letter, specifically “bisexual.”
Disagreement arose because his name, as a Council member, was on the letterhead, implying concurrence.
Elaborating on his Tuesday commentary, Mr. O’Leary noted that “I focused on the use of ‘bisexual’ because it is a group that is defined by its sexual activity. I didn’t think that was something we had even talked about the night the woman came in and handed us this paperwork (a West Hollywood-oriented resolution of commendation) she wanted us to send to the Boy Scouts of America.”
Mr. O’Leary said he had not had time to scrutinize the entirety of the language in the handed-over paperwork. “I knew, though, that it touched on the four components of the LGBT,” he said. “Neither the term ‘bisexual’ nor ‘transgender’ was discussed” before Mayor Cooper sent the letter.
“I was most uncomfortable, since I know very little about transgender, with ‘bisexual.’”
Mayor Cooper, as the principal signer, told the newspaper this morning that he “was completely comfortable with what was said in the letter. I had no problem using (standard/inclusive) LGBT language. It goes along with the notion that we don’t discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
Returning directly to the root of the disagreement with his four Council colleagues, Mr. O’Leary, a prominent member of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, said:
“I was most uncomfortable with using ‘bisexual’ because I don’t believe there is any place for somebody who defines himself by his sexual activity to be around our children.
“If you are an adult who is announcing to the world that you are bisexual, that you have experimented with both sides of the playing field and it is something you are proud of, I don’t need you to be around our children,” the Dublin native said.
“I believe – and I quoted the famous Irish playwright Oscar Wilde – that our job as parents is to make sure our children have a childhood for as long as possible.”
