An openly gay candidate has announced his bid for Jacksonville City Council, District 7 seat. While the election isn’t until 2015, James Eddy said that his decision to run was influenced by the council’s failure to pass a human rights ordinance protecting the LGBT community in 2012.
“I have always had political aspirations,” Eddy said. “It’s in my blood. But to see that I live in a city that thinks as backwards as it does…”
Eddy added that he believes there are some great people operating the City of Jacksonville, but “to have hate of something they are not educated on or their religion controls in 2012 is hard to understand.”
The contentious debate over adding sexual orientation and gender identity led to packed council chambers in 2012 and a surprise vote that fell short of the expectations of several LGBT activists and proponents. And Eddy was directly involved in promoting the ordinance.
Eddy is the president and co-founder of Rainbow House, Jacksonville’s GLBT Community Center and said he was “up front and center” during the debate.
“The bill would have given protection to LGBTs for housing and job protection,” Eddy said. “I have been out of the closet for 20 years. Just because I am running for a political office will not change that.”
Equality is just part of Eddy’s political platform heading into 2013. He also wants to focus on small government and small business.
“I believe in a government that remembers that it is the people’s money it’s spending,” he said. “I think all government needs to cut spending. And my basic platform is equality for all when it comes to human rights issues.”
Eddy admits that 2015 is a long way off, and he hopes that attitudes change in Jacksonville’s government before then. But if they don’t, Eddy’s first goal is to reintroduce and pass a Human Rights Ordinance protecting the LGBT community.
“If we are lucky, by 2015 this may have already happened at the federal level,” he said. “My second goal is to open new ways to get business to Jacksonville. We have all the rivers and the ocean to help with shipping, so this should be a city companies want to move to in order to grow their business.”
Eddy said he would also like to improve what the city already has, like its parks, and find a way to integrate the city’s homeless population into the city.
“Currently, all our City Council wants to do is shove them from our parks,” he said, “but not create an alternative.”
