If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and have not decided whether to vote for Donna Frye or Jerry Sanders, the following points in favor of Frye are offered for your consideration.

Frye believes that you should have the same civil rights that everyone else has. She believes that if you are gay or lesbian and have a partner, you should be able to legally marry. Among other benefits, legal marriage reduces the percentage of your income that you pay in taxes if you file jointly.

Sanders opposes full civil rights for gay and lesbian people. He favors discriminatory laws that do not allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. These laws force gay and lesbian couples to pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than heterosexual couples.

While San Diego’s mayor does not determine marriage laws, she or he can influence lawmakers and the broader public as the mayor of the second-largest city in California and the seventh-largest city in America. Furthermore, the mayor of San Diego is in a good position to be elected to higher office. Frye and Sanders are both young enough to serve as mayor and then run for a state or federal office. We would be better served having a Democrat like Frye in higher office than a Republican like Sanders.

The people and organizations that have endorsed Frye and Sanders speak volumes about the two candidates. Among those endorsing Frye are the Gay & Lesbian Times, the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women, organizations representing the Hispanic, African-American and Asian Pacific Islander communities, and, of course, the San Diego Democratic Club. Frye is also endorsed by popular local Democrats like Congressmember Bob Filner, state Senator Christine Kehoe and Assemblymember Lori Saldaña.

Sanders is supported by the Building Industry Association, the San Diego County Apartment Association, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Party.

Like acting mayor Toni Atkins, Frye is seen as a representative of the people. The two famously boycotted closed-session meetings of the City Council last year, insisting that the public have greater access to city business. They put forward an open government initiative that passed with more than 80 percent of the vote.

Frye is also a champion of the environment. Even before she was elected to the City Council, Frye was known for her community work to protect San Diego’s quality of life, preserving parks, canyons and open space. She was instrumental in strengthening city policies to curtail the flow of polluted water into the ocean. Frye currently serves as chair of the San Diego River Conservancy.

Frye takes a fiscally responsible approach to spending the city’s money. She believes that city government’s first priority is to provide core services like good streets and sidewalks, solid police and fire protection, and neighborhood libraries and recreation centers – not huge public subsides of professional sports teams.

Frye’s business degree and business background combined with her earned reputation for honesty and integrity make her the preferred candidate to address the city’s financial challenges. She makes her detailed plan available on her campaign Web site. In addition to spending cuts, Frye straightforwardly recommends that if cuts alone do not resolve the shortfall, the city should, as a last resort, temporarily raise the sales tax by a half percent to ensure that there is enough revenue to pay for basic city services.

Sanders’ position is less straightforward. In the primary election, he wrote: “Given the magnitude of the city’s financial problems, any candidate who tells voters he’s taking options off the table, such as no new taxes or fees…, is insulting the intelligence of his or her constituents.”

Today, Sanders not only runs on a platform of “no new taxes,” he attacks Donna Frye for declining to take such options off the table. Sanders not only insults our intelligence, he makes it worse by hoping we won’t notice that he previously told us that his current position insults our intelligence.

San Diego needs an honest Democratic mayor who is a champion of open government, who will protect the environment, who will be fiscally responsible, who has been endorsed by organizations and individuals whom we respect, and who will fight for full equality for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. San Diego needs Mayor Donna Frye.