State Sen. Jenny Oropeza today yesterday voted against confirming Doug Drummond to the state's parole board due to anti-gay remarks he made in 1993.
Oropeza and Drummond were serving together on the Long Beach City Council at the time. Drummond gave a speech at the Eagle Forum in which he said he supported Fidel Castro's quarantine of gays to counter the AIDS crisis, and said this:
But that didn't cut it for Oropeza, who joined a 3-2 vote to reject Drummond's appointment to the parole board:
Oropeza and Drummond were serving together on the Long Beach City Council at the time. Drummond gave a speech at the Eagle Forum in which he said he supported Fidel Castro's quarantine of gays to counter the AIDS crisis, and said this:
"Do you want to know why I don't worry about gay activity? I'm gonna give you a clue. So far in San Francisco, over 10,000 have died. In Long Beach, over 1,000 have died."Drummond apologized shortly after the remarks were disclosed, and supported the council motion to censure him. He has since sought to make amends by marching in gay rights parades, and he apologized again today to the Senate Rules Committee.
But that didn't cut it for Oropeza, who joined a 3-2 vote to reject Drummond's appointment to the parole board:
State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), who once served with Drummond on the City Council, questioned him at length, suggesting that his efforts at reconciliation with the gay community coincided with his unsuccessful campaigns for Long Beach mayor.
"You made a judgment as an elected official to defame a group of people," she told Drummond. "How would we feel if in some of these quotes, we took out 'homosexual' and inserted 'Mexican American' or 'African American' or 'Jew'? These are serious matters, sir, and they are ones you can't brush under the rug."The parole board position pays $112,000 a year. Though the Rules Committee voted it down, the appointment does go to the full Senate for a floor vote.
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