While John Ashcroft and the Department of Justice were busy pandering to conservatives and giving gay employees the boot when it came time for their annual “DOJ Pride” celebration, the San Diego City Attorney’s office was putting together a GLBT Pride luncheon event for its employees. Over 60 people attended the event, held on Friday, June 27, at the city attorney’s office, where ribs and chicken from Phil’s BBQ were served, the Gay Men’s Chorus entertained, and a panel of GLBT city employees educated attendees.

“It shows how far we’ve come at the city attorney’s office, [which] has at some times in our community been thought of as being not sympathetic or supportive of our community,” Dave Sherman, one of the event’s organizers, told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “We’ve come a long way to have an event like this and to have all the elected officials here.”

The GLBT panel for the event included City Councilmember Toni Atkins, Robert Oaks, Deputy Director of the Governmental Relations Department, and Brad Jacobsen, President of the San Diego City Gay and Lesbian Employees Association. Each of the speakers shared stories about their experience being an openly gay city employee.

Atkins acknowledged that she was fortunate to be in a position where her relationship with her partner, Jennifer LeSar of The Center’s Board of directors, could be out in the open, saying, “Not that I need to tell you every minute of the day who my partner is, but just to be able to know that as I sit at my desk I have a picture of my partner there, because we have some very tough and long days, and to be able to have things around me to remind me that I have a solid foundation around me to help me do the things I do” is a comfort.

Jacobsen, a 30-year city employee who began working in the library system as a young man while still in school, had experienced less acceptable behavior while working in the residential parking department of the city.

Jacobsen recalled a picture of two co-workers on a fishing trip that someone had tacked up, with a decidedly anti-gay caption written below it. “That made me have the biggest hissy fit I have ever had in the work place,” he said. “One of the gag answers was ‘trolling for queers,’ and this was in a public place, in an area where the public could come in and get their residential parking permits from the Hillcrest area.… I just blew my stack.”

Representing the city attorney’s office at the event was City Attorney Casey Gwinn and his second in command, Executive Assistant Attorney Leslie Devaney, who is currently running for the city attorney’s position Gwinn will vacate in 2004. Deborah Berger, who also works in the city attorney’s office, and is running against Devaney, was in attendance as well.

“I think this is an incredibly important thing for us to do if we really mean what we say about diversity in this organization, and we do,” Gwinn said of the event. “We have a significant number of gay and lesbian folks in this office and we started working on some issues at the Family Justice Center recently with The Center.” Gwinn noted that the Family Justice Center and The Center in Hillcrest have teamed up to help gays and lesbians involved in abusive, same-sex relationships.

Gwinn also acknowledged that there have been instances where he and Atkins have not seen eye to eye on issues that affect the GLBT community, saying, “We may disagree on things, whether it’s the Boy Scouts or other issues, but we have also found things that we could work together on and could really move forward on together.”

He went on to ask Atkins what she saw as pressing issues for the city to deal with in relationship to the GLBT community. Atkins noted that a revision to the city’s Human Dignity Ordinance is scheduled for a vote later this summer, which would add “transgender” to the language as a protected group.

“In terms of the city I think we are doing quite well,” Atkins summed up. “I think the Boy Scouts issue set us back. The morale of LGBT employees after that vote was low.… I think that our LGBT community really believed in the diversity commitment of the city, and felt pretty much kicked in the eye after Dec. 4th. I think we as a city need to recommit ourselves to the LGBT community and show them that diversity does mean something.”