Gay city council candidate drops out, admits falsifying much of his life story

Shouldn’t the headline just read, “City council candidate drops out”?

I think I agree with MAJeff

Yes, him being gay has nothing to do with it; and rather his mental illness. However in the Daily article he claimed that gayness was the source of his problem in some way or another. I think it is a shame that he feels like he has to live up to something or overcome something just because he is gay.

From Charles’ own mouth: “I spent six years being a gay nothing that people just made fun of, and then when I was discharged [from a mental institution] I found out that people would believe anything you told them”.

Seriously? What does ‘gay’ have to do with a lack of personal worth? I have never felt this has decreased my value as a person, but I have also never felt that it’s something I’ve had to overcome. I’ve continued life as myself– there are far more interesting things about me than that I just like guys.

YES ANDY BIRKEY — in a story about a possibly mentally ill pathological liar, why did you lead with the word “Gay”???

Also, there are a couple other openly gay city council members and candidates; Charles isn’t the only one.

Agreed. Headline should not say, “Gay.” True he is, and received a lot of support from the LGBT community, but candidates who support gun rights are not labeled “Gun-wielding candidate…”

I also posted on this, on MNspeak/SOC Talk:

http://www.secretsofthecity.com/talk/posts/ward-2-candidate-is-not-the-real-britt#comments

Charles ran on a platform of being openly gay, he solicited most of his campaign contributions from the gay community, and his sexual orientation was one of the defining characteristics of his campaign.

And in case anyone is wondering, I — the author — am a gay man. So obviously, there is no anti-gay animus associated with the title or the article. You can read the archive of my writing for this site for evidence of that.

But thanks for your feedback.

I’m not saying you’re anti-gay, Andy; and your own sexuality really should have nothing to do with whether your comments are taken as pro- or anti-gay. I guess the commentors here are pointing at the fact that they don’t see why ‘gay’ is the issue with Charles dropping out. Sticking ‘gay’ in as the first word in the title implies that this is somehow very important to the issue at hand. It is apparently not.

While it’s true that Charles Carlson is openly gay, and that his campaign platform included gay issues, I’m not exactly sure why this is specifically important to Ward 2. This needs to be addressed at a much higher level than a city ward or indeed city council, especially since constitutional rights are the big GLBT issue right now. I can see that after the movie Milk came out, numerous people would be excited at the opportunity to use city council as a forum to improve GLBT issues, and this is something that city council should address at some point, however there are many many more pressing issues in Ward 2 that really do need to be addressed on that level. Failing to pay attention to these is doing a disservice to the constituents of the ward. City council also has other openly gay councilmembers who are again up for election. If you’re concerned about the representation of GLBT people in city council, that is already there.

Good try, Andy.

But you are still wrong. Would you have written, “Black city council candidate” if he had
been supported by the Black community? “Jewish city council candidate” if he had been
supported by the Jewish community?

Ironically, the fact that you are gay made this a more important point in your mind than
it really is. It is what you focused on and what you thought was most noteworthy about him.

The story is that a clearly mentally ill man dropped out of the race because his lies were
uncovered. That’s it.

Andy,

Thank you for reading this feedback. Labeling is a minefield, whether the label be “adopted”, “black”, “gay”, “Jewish” or otherwise. I think the one that is most apt in this context is, “mentally-ill”, as that is the overarching theme to his departure as a candidate. His disease is very devistating and I hope he is seeking and getting the help he obviously needs. I do believe he had the best of intentions in his heart, but his head was playing tricks on him. Poor lad.

New headline for the Coleman-Franken trail: “Two Jews In Court Case”

(grin)

Andy, I’m another who agrees…leave the “Gay” out of the headline. Dont feel we are being too tough on you…none of us are perfect!Thanks for listening.

As far as Charles goes…he owes many people, much more than an apology (illnes or not). For all we know, he could be lying about that too.

“But you are still wrong. Would you have written, “Black city council candidate” if he had
been supported by the Black community? “Jewish city council candidate” if he had been
supported by the Jewish community?”

No, because being black is not the same as being jewish is not the same as being gay. Gays are invisible for the most part until we come out and identify ourselves as such. I always err on the side of identification when I am writing about anyone in the LGBT community. It promotes visibility. Is that visibility always positive? No, LGBT people aren’t perfect.

If I had written, “Gay City Council Candidate Adopts Two Homeless Puppies,” we wouldn’t be having this comment thread.

Maybe it’s not the best headline, but I think folks are making a mountain out of a mole-hill here.

I agree with Bianca. I know Charles and I still think he’s a decent person. If he had been using his concocted story to wheedle money out of people that would be more what we make fun of crooked politicians for. I think the key part of the story is a personal tragedy that unraveled in public. Even if this were the politician I most wanted to see get out of politics, I would feel no glee.

The problem with that Eric, is that this false story is what the campaign was based on since it’s inception. The first public news story about Charles in the Minnesota Daily was his story. It was all of this information that the Daily has spent time investigating for followup. Charles admitted to lying, and Charles likely received campaign donations under this context. I am sure Charles believes in his campaign goals and ideals, but this is another side of things. He in part has been saying he was an ideal candidate because of his history, which is all now known to be false.

What are the legal ramifications for this anyway? He will have to report campaign donations at some point even though he dropped out, and organizations and people who donated to him will need to know where their money has gone and why. Would you still donate to a candidate who revealed that his whole personal narrative was false?

I agree that this is in part a tragedy, and it is sad that mental illnesses lead him to do these things. Despite these mental illnesses, these things still happened and something will need to be done about it.

Why not include the word “Gay”?

It’s simple, Carlson ran on an openly gay platform. Therefore, he can respectfully be addressed as such. And yes jlasf, if a Black politician were running on a platform that is designed to appeal to Black voters, it would be entirely appropriate to label him as such. The irony here is that when the word “Gay” appears in a headline it sends up a red flag. A red flag that prompts some of us to meet a homosexual journalist with retribution for respectfully utilizing his own nomenclature.

I will say, however, that I disagree with you Andy, to a point. In the realm of social discrimination, being gay isn’t entirely different than being Black or Jewish. To prove, there is a blanket term that fits over each listed instance–a minority. So as a resolution, how about we end the bickering over what titles are appropriate to use at a given time, and focus on the meat and potatoes of the issue. Words aren’t the problem, social behavior is.

Andy, I stand behind your choice of words. To euphemise the English language only distracts from the point. The resolution wasn’t targeted at you, by the way.

Andy, you’re gay. I’m gay.

But we seem to have different goals for our community. You want gay people to be recognized, so that they will be more visible. I want gay people to be treated as we would treat anyone else. The more that we are singled out as different from others, the longer we WILL be different from others. At some point, being a “gay” anything will not be worth mentioning. I think that time has already arrived.

As for the “Gay City Council Candidate Adopts Two Homeless Puppies” headline, I would suggest a more newsworthy version, “Homeless City Council Candidate Adopts Two Gay Puppies.”

Andy, Thanks for including “gay” in the headline. As a gay blogger and a writer for an LGBT newspaper, I appreciate being able to easily find and identify stories that impact the LGBT community.

Also, I think you hit it right on the head: “Gays are invisible for the most part until we come out and identify ourselves as such. I always err on the side of identification when I am writing about anyone in the LGBT community. It promotes visibility. Is that visibility always positive? No, LGBT people aren’t perfect.”

If we didn’t identify LGBT people as LGBT, we would be just as invisible as the religious right wishes we were.

I’m not sure what the confusion is here with comments concerning the article title. Carlson ran on an exclusive LGBT agenda as his campaign platform long before he included other items in it. Any press release or communication with his campaign emphasized his “gay” orientation. For a while his sole platform as a council candidate was to further LGBT rights in the city. As such I find the title appropriate to this former candidate. Birkey here is not pushing any agenda of his own.

Eric James
Editor
TwinCityScene.com

Another important reason to include “gay” in the headline here was that the candidate got a huge amount of his support from the LGBT community and that support wasn’t due to his credential of community involvement in the struggles of Ward 2. If that’s what had driven the support, folks might have instead put their weight behind incumbent Cam Gordon (Green).

Carlson’s affiliation with the LGBT community was a fundamental component of the short history of his run–including “gay” in the headline highlights that and draws readers’ attention.

Respectfully submitted,
Addy

Had it not been for the word “gay” I would have skipped over this article and totally missed all the friggin’ drama.

Fortunately for me, I know both people involved here and can see past all the BS.

Andy – I appreciate your words, even if they include GAY in a not so gay positive headline. Thanks – for all you do!

Charles – You’ve taken a few pretty big hits in the past week, I guess that’s politics for ya. Hang in there – this will pass! (Hugs)

I think that people have picked Charles apart enough. Now whether he is gay or not, well that’s not the issue. Right now people need to let this blow over and leave Charles alone so he can come back from this.

I truely believe that Charles will do great things in this world and that Minneapolis was lucky to have him!

Charles-you are the strongest person I know. You have never let anything bring you down, and you have risen from the ashes before and I am confident you will do it again! I look forward to see you in politics, hopefully in the near future. I will always support you!

“Narnara” = Charles

Once and for all, Charles: cease writing positive comments about yourself (See the comments left on this blog post for proof: http://blog.johnschrom.com/archives/1362#comments ), PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE. If you don’t stop, I will just continue exposing you. You are only giving your story more life. But hey, I’m not tired of this circus.

No one in this city would dare say we were lucky to have you except for you!!! What good did you do for this city?! Oh wait, except for stealing $1,700 and a non-profit’s confidential mailing list. Oh, and accept donations from a St. Paul company.

You are already laying the seeds for a political comeback…sick. What you should be doing is seeking psychiatric help, seeing you blamed all your lies on your “mental illness”. However, no matter what you try doing, no one will forget what has happened…I will make sure of it.

-La’Taya.

I can’t believe I dated him! WHAT A SHOCK. Not Really!

Who is the real Charles Carlson is what everyone is asking.