Now mayor-elect Jean Stothert says she won't push for a repeal of Omaha's gay rights ordinance after all

Note: To those of you sent here from Towleroad who are wondering whether it's "Sothert" or "Stothert," it's the latter. Andy Towle misspelled it because AKSARBENT had a typo in our headline when he created the link. Our fault.



If this weren't a gay-centric blog worried about being taken the wrong way, we'd say "Oh, for the love of Mike..."
     Progressive Oasis brought to our attention that Mayor-elect Stothert just gave an interview to KOIL's popular Omaha right-wing radio host, Tom Becka, in which she claims that charges she intended to push for a repeal of Omaha's gay rights ordinance weren't true... "none of it..."

     Becka: It wasn't just the police and fire unions. The gay and lesbian groups, bisexual and transgender were all against you also, too; there was some real activity on this and some things that I thought, you know, that made it sound like you were a homophobe, that you were against the gay people and issues like that. Ah, how did that get started and indeed — is any of that true?
     Stothert: Those were the charges, and no, none of it is true... Now that it is an ordinance, my job as mayor is to make sure all city ordinances are carried out and I will do that with this ordinance and I have no plan to try to repeal it.

     Really? The Suttle campaign accused Sothert of wanting to repeal the ordinance, Stothert featured an antigay activist in her television ads who both testified against the ordinance and is a leader in the group collecting signatures to repeal it AND his organization printed a voter's guide saying Stothert would help repeal the ordinance, and now — after the election — Stothert says none of it was true?

     Maybe the whole thing was just a dream...