We've written quite a lot here about Craig Lowe, the openly gay candidate for Gainesville, FL Mayor.  He was Chair of the successful campaign to stop the repeal of the Gainesville Human Rights Ordinance, which included sexual orientation and gender identity & expression and brought out huge amount of homophobic & transphobic commercials, mailers, and slurs.  Those attacks have continued through to his current campaign for mayor.

Lowe won the first vote, (Lowe 40.13%, Marsh 29.17%, Cooper 24.86%), but since there was no majority, there will be a runoff between the top tow vote-getters- Lowe and Marsh.  It would appear the anti-equality forces have stepped up their game as well, stepping out from behind anonymous bigoted fliers and mailers.  

This sign was posted in front of local church known for their political activism in the area:

This is the reality of a gay candidate…

Lowe's opponent isn't shy about where he stands on our issues either.  The Human Rights Council of North Central Florida did a candidate questionnaire which he declined to fill out, saying:

Marsh did not reply to the questionnaire, but did state via email that Craig Lowe would “probably represent your interests better than I could.”  On his campaign website, Marsh has stated his goal to repeal what he calls the “Transgender Bathroom Ordinance”. 

That's right.  Marsh not only wants to repeal the human rights ordinance, but isn't afraid  to hop on the transphobic “bathroom scare” bandwagon.

Obviously our community can't allow Marsh to beat Craig Lowe.  Lowe needs our community's help to keep the forward momentum of Equality moving in Gainesville and all of north Florida.

Donate what you can to his campaign, follow him on twitter, and support him on Facebook.  We defeated these anti-equality, fear-mongering forces before and we can do it again!

The election is April 13th and we need to give, support, and fight to help get Lowe elected and protect our community's rights!