Even in the Andy Griffith Show lexicon of Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell’s “malarkey” thesaurus – just kidding, Scott! – the day Watermark caught up with your favorite Orlando columnist wasn’t a great one. Tribune Company, which owns the Sentinel, had just announced another restructuring, this time blurring the lines between editors and publishers. Maxwell’s spirits, however, remained unvarnished, probably because he’s a fixture that’s not likely to succumb to the leaks in mainstream journalism. He’s both lightning rod and hood ornament; he’s Wally Cleaver and Eddie Haskell (we’re aging ourselves here); he’s an icon and a humble hero. He’s also been a consistent ally for the Central Florida LGBT community.
“I have been writing about this for a long time,” he says. “Some of my earliest columns were about this issue. One of the things that I find inspiring is that in the early years, I would get a shitstorm of criticism every time I mentioned the [LGBT] issue. Today, I hardly get any.”
But times, like many discriminatory policies, have changed.
“There’s absolutely a growing presence. You have this as well, more than I do,” he laughs. “When we were talking about rainbow flags downtown 15 years ago, it was a different story. Today I’ll sometimes write about issues like gay adoption, and I’ll brace myself for the spite, and it’s just not there. The people who are responding negatively – one of the worst is [Florida Family Policy Action president] John Stemberger – it just sounds silly. It’s easier to tune that out.”
Much of Maxwell’s appeal, apart from the fact that he’s everywhere all the time in a black (or pink) tie, comes from his relatable stance on issues large and small. When there were scandals at the blood bank or at the expressway authority, Maxwell fermented the common reporting into columns that told the real story in spite of the spinning flacks. And, as previously noted, he’s not afraid to go to bat for the gay community.
“It comes back to the quote that we always talk about: If you’re silent when they come for others, who’s going to speak up for you? I’m happy to see the strides in equality,” he says. “It still continues, as you know, in this state where we still have our Attorney General [Pam Bondi] and legislators trying to nibble around the edges of the cake. Things like the Pastor Protection Act. I mean, the notion that even the sponsors of this bill acknowledge that it will not do anything [the bill passed, with amendments, on March 3 and is awaiting a signature from the governor], the fact that pastors already have this ‘protection,’ this is standing on the beach with the tidal wave coming and trying to make your last stand.”
As for his future with the Sentinel and in Orlando, well, he’s not going anywhere. His time miraculously stands still.
“I am cursed with still loving what I do,” he says. “I guess I was born two generations late.”
