NY Blade For Bloomberg??

The New York Blade has already endorsed the main opponent of Bloomberg's chief ally in the City Council, so why on Earth would they think about endorsing the Mayor's re-election? It is a potential endorsement that Matt Arnold of the NY Liberal Examiner thinks is bizarre given Bloomberg's record on LGBT issues (before the beginning of election season of course). Arnold makes the case for the Blade to think again before sending that issue to print.

From The NY Liberal Examiner:

I’ve heard from a reliable source that the New York Blade, one of the city’s main LGBT newspapers, plans to endorse Mike Bloomberg for re-election. Which would be pretty bizarre, unless they’re wanting to narrow their readership to Log Cabin Republicans.

Mike Bloomberg could never be mistaken as an advocate for the LGBT community. When Gavin Newsom was marring gay couples in San Francisco in 2005, Bloomberg instead appealed against a court ruling that would have allowed gay marriage in New York City, and he won, which is why gay people are now forced to look to the State Legislature to make marriage equality happen. And when the city council passed the Equal Benefits Law, requiring that contractors who do work with the city avoid discrimination and offer gay employees the same work benefits offered to straight couples, Bloomberg again sued to prevent that from being enforced, and again he won.

So Bloomie has damaged the LGBT community in very concrete ways. It’s nice that Bloomberg has had an election year conversion and now thinks that the time is right to press for gay marriage (in 2005 he told a HRC fundraising audience that gays needed to be “patient.”) But switching over this year doesn’t undo the damage his administration has caused. Honestly I can’t imagine what the Blade would be thinking by endorsing him. Unless, perhaps, it has something to do with all that ad money Bloomie has been spending on the paper?

Advertising is an important factor in the health of newspapers these days, but I hope the Blade isn't susceptible to that type of influence over their editorial decisions. That would be a real shame given their usually stellar record.