Ex-gay James Hartline announced recently that he will be entering the race for the District 3 City Council seat currently occupied by lesbian Councilmember Toni Atkins, who terms out in 2008. Fasten your seat belts; this should be one helluva ride.

Hartline, best known for his crusade against what he calls “San Diego’s corrupt homosexual agenda,” will join openly gay candidates Todd Gloria and Stephen Whitburn, along with former City Councilmember John Hartley, all said to be running.

Official filing, however, is not until Feb. 6 through March 6, 2008, leaving plenty of time for additional candidates to enter the fray.

While it’s doubtful voters will take either Hartline’s candidacy or anti-gay platform seriously, San Diego’s gay community has met his intention to run with caution.

A convicted felon and born-again Christian, Hartline told San Diego’s CityBeat that he renounced the life he led for 33 years as a homosexual shortly after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1997, adding he believes God will one day cure him of AIDS.

“The Enemy From Within,” by CityBeat reporter Daniel Strumpf, outlines the dark and twisted world that is James Hartline, and should be required reading for gays and straights alike. (View it online at www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3628.)

Likewise, a quick search for “Hartline” on the Gay & Lesbian Times’ Web site, www.gaylesbiantimes.com, will produce more than a dozen hits, including Hartline’s role in convincing Bishop Robert Brom to deny Catholic burial rights to nightclub owner and philanthropist John McCusker in 2005. Brom later buckled to citywide pressure and apologized in writing to the McCusker family for denying John his right to a Catholic funeral.

The list goes on. Also in 2005, Hartline notified local media that two registered sex offenders were volunteering for San Diego Pride. The Gay & Lesbian Times later confirmed that a total of three volunteers and one Pride staffer were all registered sex offenders. Ironically, Hartline’s probing served Pride in the end, making the civic event safer for families and youth, but a knock-down drag out between various factions within the community ensued for months to follow.

With his periodic spots on the nightly news protesting area strip clubs, bathhouses and adult bookstores, and now his upcoming campaign for City Council, it seems Hartline’s homily has only begun.

Worries about what, if any, effect Hartline will have on electing a third consecutive gay candidate to represent the district should be dismissed – like Hartline himself. The more he spews his anti-gay rhetoric, the more obvious the need for a gay representative on the City Council will be.

Let’s not forget just last summer six gay men were violently attacked outside San Diego’s Pride festival in Balboa Park in a series of hate crimes that shocked the entire city. The need for the gay community to have a voice on the City Council is more important now than ever before.

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