What's ahead for Buncombe's first gay commissioner
ASHEVILLE - With her Democratic primary win, the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara will almost certainly make history in becoming the first openly gay Buncombe County commissioner.
The Asheville district she would represent has no Republican in the Nov. 8 general election. After her victory in Tuesday’s primary her only possible competition would be a write-in candidate.
As director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, Beach-Ferrara rose to become a key figure in the successful fight to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. She stands to join a tiny group of LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender - elected officials in Western North Carolina and the state as a whole.
But while her ascendancy is being greeted with little surprise by progressive Asheville voters, she will become a representative in a county that remains divided over social issues such as gay marriage. That could raise additional challenges in her work on the seven-member Board of Commissioners.
Beach-Ferrara said she would build bridges and help people see she is not a "single-issue" candidate.
"As a matter of my faith and just my family and how we live our lives, it’s about finding ways to connect and engage with people where there may be some differences," said Beach-Ferrara, an ordained United Church of Christ minister who is married with one child.
Still, any such divides could become starkly illuminated with proposals such as a Charlotte-style anti-discrimination ordinance that got national attention over the issue of bathroom choice for transgender residents, a rule that Beach-Ferrara said she would propose for the county.
Republican District 3 Commissioner Miranda DeBruhl, of Leicester, said she would fight the proposal.
"It’s just not going to happen on my watch," said DeBruhl, a candidate for primary chair.
LGBT elected officials, rare
North Carolina has had at least two openly gay state legislators, but none hold seats now and there have been no LGBT North Carolinians in federal elected office.
Among elected officials in local governments representing individual counties, cities and towns across the state, 0.2 percent are LGBT, according to research done by a staff member of the Campaign for Southern Equality. Beach-Ferrara noted information was limited.
In WNC, Nick Breedlove was possibly the first openly gay official for the mountains, serving as mayor of Webster from 2013 until 2015, when he stepped down to become director of Jackson County's Tourism Development Authority.
Currently, there is one openly gay elected official in the western part of the state, Patrick Fitzsimmons, who serves on the Weaverville Town Council.
In Asheville, where a rainbow banner flew from City Hall in anticipation of the end of the state's gay marriage ban, there have been none.
Lindsey Simerly, an employee of the Campaign for Southern Equality under Beach-Ferrara, came the closest when in 2015 she advanced from the City Council primary but lost in the general election.
With anywhere from 3.3 to more than 4 percent of the state population estimated as gay, Beach-Ferrara said there was a "profound lack of representation."
"It matters in our country and in our local communities," she said. "Any time there is any group of people that has been systematically discriminated against by the law, part of the journey to equality and inclusion is being represented in elected office."
Deep divisions?
Before the Supreme Court's move against gay marriage bans, North Carolinians in 2012 voted by a large margin to make such a prohibition part of the state constitution, approving Amendment One with 61 percent of the vote.
Most voters in Buncombe County felt differently, with 52 percent casting ballots against the ban. While the countywide split was close, the divisions among opponents and supporters was gaping in some county areas with drastic differences between Asheville and outlying communities, according to an analysis done by the Citizen-Times.
In North Asheville and West Asheville opposition to the ban was as large as 88 percent.
In Leicester, Candler and North Buncombe – places well outside of the city - margins were flipped with up to 77 percent supporting the ban.
Buncombe County has three commissioner districts, each getting two representatives. District 1, which would be represented by Beach-Ferrara, includes almost all of Asheville. Others take in more rural areas. The commissioners’ chairman is elected by voters countywide.
Buncombe had the highest proportion of same-sex households and the 20th most in the nation when measured in a 2010 Census study by a think tank specializing in sexual orientation demographics. The study was by Williams Institute, which is part of UCLA Law.
Gay marriage supporters, such as Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Brownie Newman, say attitudes have shifted nationally and locally over the last four years with more people backing pro-LGBT policies.
"This has obviously been one of those social issues where public opinion has been changing really, really rapidly," said Newman, a solar energy company co-owner and Asheville Democrat who is running for the chairman's seat against DeBruhl.
"Just a few years ago even the state of California passed legislation that opposed marriage equality, and here we are now a few years later where people can get married in South Carolina, a really conservative state," he said.
Some statistics appear to bear out the theory of a North Carolina attitude shift. Two Elon University polls showed at least a 3-5 point increase in support for gay marriage in the three years after the Amendment One vote.
In June 2015, 44 percent of N.C. registered voters thought gay marriage should be legal in all states, up five points from the 39 percent who voted against the 2012 ban, an Elon poll said. Other respondents in the poll, 54 percent, thought each state should be able to decide.
A few months later, another Elon poll in September recorded 46 percent of voters opposing gay marriage with 42 percent supporting it.
But attitudes of Republicans in Buncombe government tell a different story. All three GOP commissioners, DeBruhl, Mike Fryar of Fairview and Joe Belcher of Candler, oppose gay marriage.
DeBruhl, a former nurse who co-owns two businesses with her husband, said "I personally and religiously believe that marriage is between one man and one woman," but added that court action has meant "local governments don't really have a say."
Fryar, who won his District 2 primary for the county’s east Tuesday, said he was close to his deceased brother Art, who was gay and ran a landmark LGBT nightclub on North Grove Street for 25 years. But he said even his brother didn't want legalization.
Fryar said his brother had joked that he didn't want to get married. "He said, 'I saw what you went through.'"
Fryar's Democratic opponent, Nancy Nehls Nelson, a former AT&T Bell Labs project manager from Reems Creek, said she "was raised to believe in inclusiveness" and supported the Supreme Court decision.
"The institution of marriage offers legal responsibilities and protections…all equal in front of the law," Nelson said.
Belcher, a retired manufactured home company vice president, said his opposition was based on religious beliefs.
"I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the biblical definition that marriage is between a man and a woman," he said.
His Democratic opponent for District 3 in the county's west, Ed Hay, said he thought most people had come to accept same-sex marriage as "the law of the land."
"I do not see it as a divisive issue," said Hay, a South Asheville bankruptcy attorney and former city councilman.
Beach-Ferrara: Not a "single-issue" candidate
In her campaign, Beach-Ferrara often referenced her work promoting LGBT issues including meeting with White House staff to discuss policies in the South and being part of the team behind a series of amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court on the marriage argument. But LGBT issues were not part of her campaign promises or the policy positions she promoted.
"One thing that does come up for LGBT candidates right now is the sense that we can only be single-issue candidates and that is something I certainly encountered as a perception," she said.
To counter that, Beach-Ferrara said she focused on problems all could agree should be solved, such as one in four children in the county living in poverty, families struggling with health problems and heroin overdoses.
She said fixes should include universal pre-kindergarten, paid leave for all county employees and providing deputies with overdose medication.
Commissioners may not agree on the solutions but Beach-Ferrara said she's learned how to build bridges by listening to people with very different viewpoints and would do that on the Board of Commissioners.
"We do not have to contribute to the kind of shrill partisan political culture that we are experiencing right now."
Support for LGBT ordinance?
That kind of scenario may be unavoidable, though, after one proposal that Beach-Ferrara said she will make.
It's an exception to avoiding LGBT-focused policies that she said she decided to make after Charlotte passed a nondiscrimination ordinance last month that drew national attention and threats by Republican lawmakers to override it.
The ordinance guarantees lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people equal treatment by businesses in ways similar to existing rules prohibiting discrimination because of race or religion.
But the part of the ordinance drawing the strongest reaction was a guarantee that transgender people have the right to use the bathroom of their choice.
Advocates say the change would prevent violence against that population. Opponents say it could open women's bathrooms and locker rooms to sexual predators and that has caused Republicans who control the General Assembly to talk about holding a special session before the ordinance takes effect April 1.
On March 8, amid calls for a similar ordinance for Asheville, the City Council declined to take action. Mayor Esther Manheimer said Asheville didn't need the rule because its situation was different than Charlotte’s, where a former nondiscrimination rule had explicitly excluded bathrooms. The new rule was intended to fix that, Manheimer said.
Asheville, she said, is like "anywhere else" in the United States that doesn't have rules about who can or can't use bathrooms.
With federal and state protections lacking, Beach-Ferrara said the county, city and other local governments should follow Charlotte's lead.
"If someone experiences discrimination on the basis of race in public accommodations, in a hotel or a restaurant, there’s a system and a way to report that," she said. "We know people have those experiences based on sexual orientation and we currently have no protections around that."
Such a proposal could be a hard fight, though, on a board with solid Republican resistance and uncertainty among some Democratic commissioners and candidates.
Chair candidate DeBruhl said she had spoken to state legislators about the possibility.
"I’ve already reached out to our leaders in Raleigh and I feel confident we will win this fight,” she said.
Fryar said the proposal equated to Asheville residents trying to force their values onto those living in other parts of the county.
"Buncombe County doesn’t need to be Asheville," he said.
The District 2 commissioner said the county didn’t need the rule because there were already unisex bathrooms.
"That’s all we hear right now is people saying they're getting discriminated against."
Belcher said, "as a gentleman," he thought such an ordinance "would be harmful to women and children in Buncombe County."
Only one Democrat, District 2 Commissioner Ellen Frost of Black Mountain, offered immediate and full support.
"I'm against discrimination for anyone whether it's because they're LGBT or if it's about race. It's a horrible thing," said Frost who is not up for re-election this year.
Nelson said she favored a rule protecting rights to public accommodations, but the District 2 hopeful said any ordinance shouldn't extend to businesses, which should be motivated not to discriminate by economic gain.
"To offer this accommodation is a clear signal of inclusiveness which brings more money to any business."
Chair candidate Newman and Hay said they weren't ready to make a decision. Newman said he thought such rules were likely the legal purview of state and federal government.
"I am not familiar enough with what Charlotte has enacted to have an opinion on the issue," he said.
District 3 candidate Hay complimented Beach-Ferrara, saying she would make "an outstanding commissioner," but said in the case of shared bathrooms he would want to get public input.
"I think it is important to be thoughtful and careful any time government action affects a person's sense of privacy," he said.
Deep rifts: LGBT issues
In 2012 Amendment One passed in North Carolina 61 to 39 percent, adding a same-sex marriage ban to the state constitution. That was flipped in Buncombe County, where less than half supported the amendment, 48 percent to 52 percent. But county voter attitudes differed greatly depending on geography. (A 2015 Supreme Court decision overrode the ban, making same-sex marriage legal through the U.S.)
For Amendment One, which banned same-sex manager
Leicester: (Leicester School polling site) 77 percent, 23 percent against.
Candler: (Pole Creek Baptist Church polling site) 77 percent for, 23 percent against.
North Buncombe: (North Buncombe Elementary polling site) 76 percent for, 24 percent against
Montford: (William Randolph School polling site), 12 percent for, 88 percent against.
North Asheville: (St. Mark's Lutheran Church polling site) 15 percent for, 85 percent against.
West Asheville (Hall Fletcher School polling site): 19 percent for, 81 percent against.
(Sources: Buncombe County Election Services with analysis by the Citizen-Times)
Shifting attitudes?
In 2012, North Carolina voters opposed gay marriage by a large margin (61 to 39 percent). But more recent polling indicates a shift:
- June 9, 2015 (prior to June 26 Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage): 48 percent of U.S. registered voters said same-sex marriage should be legal nationwide. 44 percent of N.C. voters said it should be legal nationwide. 54 percent of N.C. voters said each state should decide. (Source: Elon University)
- Sept. 21, 2015: 46 percent of registered N.C. voters oppose same-sex marriage. 42 percent support it. (Source: Elon University)
- Jan. 8, 2015: 53 percent of U.S. residents satisfied with acceptance of gays and lesbians (Source: Gallup)
- Jan 10, 2016: 60 percent of U.S. residents satisfied with acceptance of gays and lesbians (Source: Gallup)