Summary: Councilman Stan Henry has managed to put his foot in his mouth, chew it down to the bone, and then shoot himself in that very same foot. Fearing a political “drill” in which any vote he takes on tonight’s marriage equality resolution of the city Council will antagonize some constituency he should be afraid of pissing off, the quondam police chief has taken a powder, announcing that he has “another engagement” this evening which will prevent him from fulfilling what ought to be his highest-priority responsibility. Worse, Henry has essentially gone on the record as opposing the resolution. Not only does he make no friends among the religious right to whom he and reigning mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa so assiduously pandered, but he’s also managed to piss off Cathedral city’s substantial queer nation. I had not thought it possible that even a freshman councilman could be so politically maladroit.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Cathedral City councilman Stan Henry managed to put his foot in his mouth, chew it down to the bone, and then shoot himself in that very same foot today with his divisive and ill-considered remarks on tonight’s proposed marriage equality resolution of the Cathedral City city Council.
Speaking to the Desert Sun’s Tamara Sone, Henry remarked that:
“As a police officer and then chief of police, I spent most of my adult life making sure everyone had equal rights. Why we are injecting ourselves into something we have no authority over, I don’t know,” he said. “There is already a law for civil agreements. We should be focusing on bringing businesses and jobs into the city.”
To make matters worse, the quondam police chief, a self-identified social conservative, plans to absent himself from tonight’s council meeting, citing “another engagement” and offering a claim --- incredible on its face --- that he’s not skipping out on the council meeting simply to avoid having to cast a vote that will get him in trouble with at least one major constituency.
Plainly, the quondam police chief has a lot to learn about the responsibilities he owes to the voters who elected him.
Yesterday, I observed in this blog that both Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and Mr. Henry were facing a political dilemma known in California as a “drill.” Until is a situation in which any both a politician casts is guaranteed to piss off a particular constituency. In this case, voting in favor of marriage equality would clearly annoy the religious right voters to whom both DeRosa and Henry pandered so blatantly during the 2012 election cycle. On the other hand, voting against marriage equality would antagonize Cathedral City’s vocal, and increasingly political, queerfolk.
Obviously, something has shifted in the political calculus of Cathedral City. To the extent that DeRosa and Henry, along with defeated former councilman Bud England thought that they could get elected, and hold on permanently, to office by courting low information socially conservative voters, national events have disabused them of so foolish a notion. The Desert Sun was right to note that tonight’s vote will force DeRosa to take a definitive stand on an issue which he has tried very hard to triangulate and to tergiversate to avoid having to make any kind of actual commitment one way or another.
Henry’s problem is more simple, yet less deserving of any sympathy. Henry brings with him the baggage of three decades in the police department (and the extent to which Cathedral City has become a Police Department with a municipal corporation attached is an issue for further posts in this blog). Any gay man can tell you from experience that law enforcement has historically tended to regard itself as the guardian, custodian, and conservator of what it believes ought to be “correct” social values, and to police those values accordingly.
Over many years, there has been little love lost between law enforcement and the queer nation. For example, any historian of the City of West Hollywood can attest that West Hollywood became something of a “sanctuary” for queerfolk because of the unremitting hostility of the LAPD toward LGBT people in the City of Los Angeles during the chiefships of such top cops as William Parker and Ed Davis.
To the extent that queerfolk are, by our nature, cultural dissidents whose critique of the larger society around us often stings, we have been natural targets for the disapproval of much of the law enforcement community. Sadly, Mr. Henry seems to forget that he was not elected to represent Cathedral City’s top-heavy Police Department, but rather to represent Cathedral City’s residents, irrespective of our sexuality or religious beliefs. Moreover, Henry’s flip remark that “[t]here is already a law for civil agreements” merely displays astonishing and dangerous ignorance of history. If Stanley Henry had bothered to familiarize himself with Brown v. Board of Education,(1954) 347 U.S. 483, he would have learned that “separate but equal” is an unsustainable and unconstitutional formulation. Sadly, ignorance and arrogance seem to have met in this councilman.
Writing before the election, I warned that DeRosa would probably attempt, were Mr. Henry to be elected to the council, to “colonize” the Police Department, turning it into her own political enforcement entity. I asked whether it was a good idea for the PD to act as the mayor’s “muscle.”
Henry took exception to my remark, and very publicly impugned my integrity.
Now it is my turn to impugn his, and with a hell of a lot more justification.
To the extent that Mr. Henry has ever voted on any similar resolution in the past, he cannot now be heard to complain, and his doing so raises severe questions about his integrity and fitness for office.
If Mr. Henry cannot provide satisfactory information as to his whereabouts tonight, his absence from the council should be counted as unexcused, and he should be called upon to explain his deliberate, tactical, and inexcusable absence from a vote with respect to which his constituents have a right to know where he stands. Certainly, Henry has made himself no friends among the religious rightists he so assiduously pandered to during the campaign, and he’s also managed to antagonize the queer nation.
Because right now, all we know is that Stan Henry has taken a powder: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Perhaps, if the thought of pissing off a constituency he’s afraid to antagonize gives him too much agita, he should follow the example of the departing Roman Pontiff, lay down his office, and allow another ---made of sterner, more forthright stuff --- to assume the responsibility of representing the residents of this community.
And perhaps he should go; I had not thought possible that even a freshman councilman could be so politically maladroit.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral city, California. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not to be taken as legal advice. To anyone foolish enough to attempt to retaliate against him on the basis of this blog post, he has only four words: federal civil rights litigation.
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