Floyd falls for Griggs’ gimmick

For those of you not following this little slice of local intrigue, let me set the stage for you. Seemingly out of nowhere, Dallas City Councilman Scott Griggs announces he is going to introduce a resolution putting the council on record as supporting marriage equality. Not only that, but he says he has the votes to pass it.

The gullible Jacquielynn Floyd

Mike Rawlings, the mayor of our fair city, a well-intentioned, somewhat intelligent (two attributes not usually associated with our mayors of late) chap, says, while he’s all for marriage equality, the resolution is a complete waste of time, has nothing to do with city business and should not even be debated. Rawlings knows a ploy when he smells one.

Dallas Morning News columnist Jacquielynn Floyd, on the other hand, is not that clever. Perhaps she only sees things at face value.

In a column that began on the front page of the paper’s Metro section Friday, Floyd wrote that the mayor "is missing an opportunity to lend his moral weight to an issue that affects an awful lot of people in this community," as if Griggs’s resolution really had anything whatsoever to do with marriage equality.

No, what the mayor is missing an opportunity to do is to play Griggs’ dupe, something which Floyd had no problem succumbing to, proving it by devoting the rest of her column about how there’s this cultural shift taking place in America on the issue of marriage equality.

Wake up, Floyd! Griggs’ resolution is not about marriage equality, it’s about winning re-election in a neck-and-neck race against fellow council member Delia Jasso. Do you think it’s just a coincidence Griggs wants this resolution to come before the council in its last meeting before this month’s election? Griggs is mining for votes any way he can and this is nothing more than a blatant attempt to secure the gay vote in the district. And, if you look closely at the neighborhoods in the redrawn district, you’re going to find some with significant gay populations.

I’ll give Floyd 1,000-to-1 odds, Griggs wouldn’t even bother with this ploy after the election.

Rawlings knows exactly what’s going on here, but he’s too diplomatic to accuse Griggs of pandering, which he is guilty of. Instead the mayor says this is not an issue for the city council to debate, just like condemning Syria for possibly using chemical weapons is not an issue for the Dallas City Council to debate.

However, if Griggs happened to discover a large number of voting age Syrians in his district, no telling what he’d do.

And Floyd would probably go "Yeah, let’s get behind that. There’s a huge cultural shift taking place in today’s society concerning Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons."

Give me a break.