He looked like Mayor Anthony Williams.
He sounded like our lame duck leader.
But the words and their intent came from someone much tougher and more passionate than the intellectual wonk who has been running D.C. for seven years.
Indeed, it was Tony who threatened to throw Bishop Alfred Owens Jr. off of his Interfaith Council, in response to the minister’s vicious attacks on homosexuals. And it was the mayor who lost his cool when political commentator Mark Plotkin hectored him about voting rights.
I am tempted to pin these outbursts on jet lag from the mayor’s arduous return from Africa. But we may be witnessing a defining moment in the political maturation of Anthony Williams: Could the mayor be getting gumption — finally?
This is the mayor who caved into political pressure early in his first term and backed down from taking over the schools. The chief executive who can’t fire subordinates. The mayor who never said “no” to Major League Baseball.
Williams has been a fine mayor. He has helped resurrect the city in many ways, but having guts is not one of his qualities, at least not one that he displays often, until this week.
The Plotkin Affair was minor league. On his WTOP radio show Wednesday, Plotkin kept prodding Williams about whether or when or how he would lobby President Bush about D.C. voting rights in the House. Williams answered diplomatically at first then said: “Look, Mark, goddamn it, everybody tried to reach the president.”
A minute later, Williams apologized. Too bad.
The squabble with Owens, on the other hand, could become a major league brawl.
Thundering from his pulpit Palm Sunday at Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, Owens preached that only real men could “confess Jesus as Lord and Savior” not a “faggot or sissy.”
Can’t say I was totally surprised by the bishop’s antigay fulminations. There is a deep-seated homophobia in the conservative, churchgoing black community, which often comes out in the words of the preachers.
Remember the Rev. Willie Wilson’s diatribes against lesbians last summer? Wilson, Marion Barry’s spiritual adviser, told his congregation at Union Temple Baptist Church that lesbians were taking over the black community and “destroying us.”
Notice that no other black preachers tried to rein in Wilson — or Bishop Owens. But Owens has forced Williams to respond. Williams has done more than any mayor to include gays in his administration’s higher reaches. Williams has broad support in Washington’s politically powerful gay community.
At his press conference Wednesday, Williams said he was “shocked” by Owens’ attack on gays. He demanded an apology and threatened to “discontinue that relationship” with Owens and his Interfaith Council.
In a letter yesterday to The Washington Post, Owens offered to “apologize for any offense” in his sermon. But he offered “no apology” for preaching about “hell and sin.”
Is that good enough for Tough Tony? Or is Tony not really tough, after all.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
