Opening doors, increasing gay visibility in Carrollton
By Tammye Nash Staff Writer
Sep 14, 2006, 19:06
McCranie’s experience as a campaign volunteer in Carrollton city
elections led to formation of new group, mayor’s appearance in parade
Public officials and political candidates have become a common sight in Dallas’ Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade each September.
Openly gay current and former City Council members like Ed Oakley, John Loza and Chris Luna led the way. Mayor Laura Miller has been in the parade every year since she was first elected in 2002.
Dallas County’s first lesbian, first Latina sheriff, Lupe Valdez, rode in the parade last year, along with a record number of Dallas City Council members and other city officials. And members of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas say they expect a record number of candidates in the November mid-term elections to ride or walk in the parade this year.
But there will be two new public faces in this year’s parade – a landmark event that one man hopes will herald a new era of LGBT visibility and involvement in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton.
Carrollton Mayor Becky Miller and City Council member Pat Malone are riding in the Dallas gay Pride parade on Sunday, the first time that any Carrollton official has done so. Miller this week credited her participation to her friendship with Oakley and her participation in Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays — but mainly to her friendship with Bob McCranie.
McCranie, a real estate agent and community activist who lives in Carrollton with his partner, Warren Sippel, found himself at the center of some unwanted attention earlier this year when some people in the Republican Party took exception to his involvement with a City Council candidate’s campaign.
In 2005, McCranie worked on Miller’s successful mayoral campaign as well as a successful council campaign. This year, he worked on Herb Weidinger’s campaign for City Council, which turned out to be another successful bid for public office.
| Bob McCranie says he started The Carrollton Project so that the social conservatives who tried to keep him from being active on the campaigns of candidates for city office would know that there is more than just one gay person in Carrollton. |
Although mayoral campaigns and city council campaigns are not partisan, all three candidates identify themselves as Republicans. Some of their fellow Republicans were not very happy to see an openly-gay political moderate playing such a visible role in those campaigns.
“Last year when I worked with Becky’s campaign and the other council campaign, there were some people who really didn’t like it,” McCranie said. “Then this year, the Denton County Republican Club had a meeting, and they had me on the agenda. They said they just couldn’t allow a ‘liberal gay Democrat’ to work on a campaign like this, even if it were a campaign for a Republican candidate.”
The homophobia was evident throughout the campaign, McCranie said, but Weidinger came out on top when the votes were finally counted. Still, the anti-gay tactics continued, McCranie said.
“After the election, Herb’s opponent, Charles W. Thrasher, wrote Herb an e-mail, calling me ‘Gay Bob,’ and saying he couldn’t believe Herb let ‘that big sissy’ work on his campaign,” McCranie said.
But McCranie refused to be cowed. In fact, he said, “It just spurred me on.”
“I didn’t like the idea that they think there is just me, this one gay person in Carrollton, and that if they could just shut me up that the problem would go away,” McCranie said. “The truth is, there are a lot more gay people in Carrollton. They need to recognize the diversity in the city. They can single me out all day long and do everything they can to try and wear me down. But they can’t run away from the fact that there is diversity in the city and that diversity needs to be recognized.”
With that goal in mind, McCranie decided it was time for Carrollton to have a LGBT organization of its own. And so was born The Carrollton Project.
The organization is intended to reach out to LGBT people and their straight allies in and around Carrollton and provide educational outreach, present town hall meetings, work with other minority organizations and hold voter registration drives, according to a written statement McCranie released this week.
The statement said that in an effort to keep the focus “on activism rather than organizational challenges,” McCranie reached out to friends in the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance and the Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
I proposed a gay marriage, of sorts,” McCranie said. “There’s no point in creating another agency with its own board, donor base and overhead. DGLA and CCGLA were very encouraging, and both wanted to support the effort. Carrollton spans Dallas, Denton and Collin counties, so it seemed natural to include both organizations.”
Both alliances were eager to help. Morris Garcia, president of the Collin County group called the Carrollton Project an opportunity to “represent and strengthen our community and the common goals, most importantly, equal rights for all Americans.”
Pete Webb, Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance president, said the Carrollton Project fits well with his group’s mission of “equality and full inclusion,” and that he is looking forward to “the positive results of working with Morris Garcia and Bob McCranie on this project.”
McCranie said the group’s first goal is “to create a little bit of community, and then see where it goes from there.”
“Our first meeting is on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Café Brazil, and if we can get two or three people there, it will be a success. There are no small meetings in this community,” he said. | 
Becky Miller, mayor of Carrollton, says that although she is a Republican, she is definitely not a member of the GOP’s socially conservative right wing. She says, “I just love people for who they are. I am not judgmental.” Miller will ride in the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sunday, along with Carrollton City Councilmember Pat Malone. It will be the first time that any Carrollton elected officials have appeared in the gay Pride parade. |
“We have to get people used to the idea of coming together and talking about things. And eventually, I would like to see people on boards and commissions and committees. People will see that there really are plenty of gay people here, and not just me, the one gay person in the city who is a troublemaker who has to be stopped.”
McCranie said Mayor Miller’s decision to ride in the Pride parade on Sunday will be a big help in raising the new group’s profile. Miller said this week that she considers that an effort well worth her time.
“I promote diversity, and I know you have to do more than that. You have to celebrate diversity,” Miller said. “Ed Oakely is a good friend of mine, and he has talked to me before about riding in the parade.
“He told me this year that I could ride in the car with him. But I need to ride in my own car, Pat Malone and I, because I want the gay community in Carrollton to see me there and know that I support them. I welcome them, and my door is always open to them.”
“Seeing her in this parade will show people that in her mind, diversity is about much more than just lip service,” McCranie said. “Everyone in the Carrollton elections talked about diversity, and we have a lot of diverse communities – Middle Eastern people, Hispanics, Asians as well as gays and lesbians. But the boards and commissions in the city don’t reflect that at all.”
He continued, “I want to see the city change. I know it won’t happen overnight. But we have some good people in our government, and we need them to be encouraging people in all these communities to be active in the government.
“In Plano, Frisco, even in Dallas not that long ago, we have to fight and fight to get even five minutes with our government officials. Now we have someone in the mayor’s office who loves our community, who is interested in our needs and is happy to help us. It’s a great joy,” he said.
Miller’s participation in the parade Sunday will be a demonstration of overcoming more than one kind of prejudice, since Miller is a Republican and Republicans don’t often receive a very warm welcome in the LGBT community.
But McCranie, who calls himself a moderate Democrat, said he doesn’t base his opinion of a political candidate or office holder on party affiliation.
“I just care what their policies are and how they treat people,” he said.
Miller laughed. “Bob teases me about being a Republican,” she said. “He says I am really a closet Democrat. I am definitely not a conservative Republican. I just love people for who they are. I am not judgmental.”
That, McCranie said, is what makes the real difference.
“The Denton Republican Party wants to cast me as a liberal Democrat who hates all Republicans. But that just isn’t true. I mean, I am married to a Republican! Four out of the five city council candidates I helped get elected are Republicans,” McCranie said.
“There are good people in both parties, even though the Republican Party structure has been taken over by the right-wing Republicans, even to the point of pushing out their own moderates,” he continued.
“The LGBT community is rightfully afraid of the GOP and bitter about what the Republicans have done to us. But there are individuals within the party who recognize the need for change. Those are the ones we can and must reach.”
E-mail nash@dallasvoice.com |