Perea Committed to Community (excerpt)
Albuquerque
Journal, September 12, 1997
PO Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103
opinion@abqjournal.com
By Cindy Glover
... [Candidate for Myor of Albuquerque, NM, Vickie] Perea has
a strong Christian faith, and "recommitted her life to God" as an adult. As a
result, she said she works hard to avoid doing anything "illegal, immoral or
unethical."
"It's like a three-pronged stool. if you hit one leg, it
topples," she said.
Perea acknowledged that because of her religious beliefs, she
struggled with the hate crimes ordinance the council approved in December. The law adds 90
days to jail sentences if someone commits a crime based on race, religion, national
origin, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Perea introduced an amendment that would have added a
paragraph to the "sexual orientation" part of the bill, saying it wasn't
intended to "create a special class" of people who might be able to use it in
civil rights lawsuits.
When asked recently if that means she opposes lesbian and gay
rights, Perea said, "When you start creating classes of people, that's divisive to
the community."
She declined to elaborate.
The amendment was defeated and Perea ended up voting against
the bill, saying she didn't think it went far enough. She pointed out it didn't address
crimes based on age, occupation or wealth -- menaing crimes against the elderly, police
officers or homeless people wouldn't carry the extra penalty.
But Bob Summersgill, a board member of the Lesbian and Gay
Political Alliance, said he doesn't buy Perea's explanation.
"She never said so in public, but from everything we've
heard behind the scenes, we believe the only reason she opposed it was sexual
orientation," Summersgill said.
He said the group is concerned that, if elected, perea would
rescind Mayor martin Chavez's executive order prohibiting the city from discriminating
against job applicants based on their sexual orientation.
"That would mean the city could fire gay and lesbian
people at will, which is what we believe Perea supports," Summersgill said.
"Furthermore, I believe that Vickie Perea, if elected mayor, would go out of her way
to block any advances that would bring gays and lesbians up to equal status with straight
people."
In a recent interview, perea said she hadn't considered
changing the executive order. "That's not on my list of major issues the next mayor
needs to think about."
She said that she wouldn't rule out "revisiting"
Chavez's order in its entirety, but said homosexual city employees would have nothing to
fear if she were mayor.
"I would be mayor to everyone," Perea said.
"There should be no abuse or retaliation against anyone because of who they are. I
believe it's wrong to discriminate against anyone."
She added that she thinks her faith would make her a better
mayor.
...
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