It's been a good long time since we've told you folks about what Jim Holman's been up to. Holman, you might recall, is the publisher of the San Diego Reader, CityBeat's competition in San Diego's alternative-newsweekly market. Since this editorial is being written on Tuesday, before the election results are in, we thought it a fine time to check back in with him.
Oh, look! Holman signed his name to a letter on a website called "Republicans and Independents for Scott Peters." The letter is under the header "Defensive Tactical Voting: Which candidate will do the least harm?" and the first sentence lays out the problem: "Christian conservatives face a moral dilemma in a key San Diego election race."
The dilemma was that in the race between Peters and Carl DeMaio to fill the 52nd District congressional seat, there was no obvious choice for people who vote based on biblical principles—well, this group's version of biblical values, that is. The way this group sees it, you're unacceptable if you're OK with abortion and same-sex marriage. Therefore, they argue, neither Peters nor DeMaio is acceptable. So, what's a pro-life sexual-orientation bigot to do? Choose the lesser of two evils, of course: "defensive tactical voting."
To this group's thinking, the lesser of these here evils is Peters. Why? Because Peters is your garden-variety liberal who wants to maintain women's access to safe abortions and open up marriage to same-sex couples by way of the Democratic Party, which already supports those things. DeMaio, they say, is way more dangerous, because he wants to change the Republican Party, which is the only hope for pro-life sexual-orientation bigots:
"DeMaio is an avowed LGBTQ activist (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning). The LGBTQ movement believes in a genderless society, where God's order of male and female is denied. Their goal is much greater than that. It is to impose their views upon us, with the intent of abolishing our rights to freedom of religious conscience, coercing us to affirm homosexual practice and to forever alter the historic, natural definition of marriage. Allow us to be clear, in court cases all over America, it is now overwhelmingly evident that religious liberty and the radical homosexual agenda can not co-exist. Authentic biblical believers are losing their right to the first amendment expression whenever the homosexual agenda gets its way."
DeMaio wants a genderless society! No genders! That's the radical homosexual agenda!
The letter goes on: "Carl DeMaio is young, with a charismatic personality. If Carl DeMaio were elected to congress, those within the GOP who desire to destroy historic one-man, one-woman marriage, and those who desire to destroy life in the womb, would likely attempt to increase DeMaio's influence and stature within the Republican Party—becoming the poster child for the emerging left wing of the GOP. And as an incumbent, he would be virtually impossible to defeat."
More: "A vote for democrat Scott Peters will send a message to the Republican Party: 'Defend your Party platform and its conservative values, and return to promoting and endorsing candidates who vocally support the entire platform. If you do not, we will keep voting for the opposition, and you will keep loosing [sic] elections.'"
So, this is how Jim Holman thinks. It's not a surprise to us; we used to write fairly often about his homophobic, anti-choice antics. Holman's an orthodox Catholic who also publishes (out of the Reader's office) something called the "California Catholic Daily," which informs readers about the dual scourges of homosexuality and abortion. He's also spent more than $5 million—presumably money he made off of Reader advertisers (the Reader has long been one of the most profitable weeklies in the country)—on several failed initiatives aimed at barring teenagers' access to abortion without parental notification. In 2012, he spent $30,000 on fighting teen access to abortion in Montana and $30,000 on battling assisted suicide in Massachusetts.
Why are we telling you this? Are we being self-serving by letting you know how Holman thinks and how he spends the money he's made off of advertising in the Reader? You betcha. Absolutely. We'd very much like to be the biggest weekly in town. We're greedy like that.
But it's also a bit of buyer-beware transparency. It's hard to know where your money goes after you spend it. When it's spent with Jim Holman and the Reader, we're here to help.
What do you think? Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.
