Vallejo: When Faith & Tolerance Collide

By: Scott James

In today’s column for The Bay Citizen and The New York Times, I revisit a story I wrote last fall that caused an uproar. That’s when Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis, a devout Assemblies of God follower, told me that gay people would not be able to get into heaven.

His comments led to protests and intense media coverage, both here and around the world. I was vilified by some for reporting the story, including one religious website that accused me of playing a game to “settle old political scores.” The local Vallejo newspaper condemned me in an editorial called “Unfair to Davis, unfair to Vallejo.”

To be clear, there were no scores being settled, political or otherwise. I’d had no contact or history with Mayor Davis before the interview and his comments about gays were a surprise.

The original story was supposed to be about complaints that a nascent theocracy government was taking over the city, with Christian prayer ceremonies being held at City Hall. Local religious leaders had publicly proclaimed their intention to turn Vallejo into a “City of God.” There were also reports that fundamentalist Christian beliefs had led to the mistreatment of gay candidates running for public office. And the school system had just settled a lawsuit after a lesbian high school student was allegedly told by school staff that she would be going “to hell.”

I’ve been silent about the controversy that ensued after my first column was published. It wasn’t my intention to make myself part of the story, and being criticized comes with the territory when writing for news organizations like the Times and now The Bay Citizen.

So I stayed on the sidelines and let others cover the story, until today.

I’d learned that for the first time Vallejo had proclaimed June to be Gay Pride Month. In addition, two civic groups had formed to try to heal the city’s wounds, and there had even been a screening of the gay rights movie “Milk.” I thought these were signs that a community so bitterly divided by the mayor’s comments was moving in a new direction, perhaps towards tolerance and unity.

But it not take long to discover that this is still a city divided. Walking around Vallejo’s desolate downtown, I spoke to shopkeepers who said it was dangerous to be openly gay. Then as I reviewed the video of the recent city council meeting where the Gay Pride Month announcement was made, I saw one of the city’s most prominent religious leaders get up minutes later and publicly condemn the proclamation, and receive applause.

And yet these developments received scant coverage in the local newspaper, the Vallejo Times-Herald. They’re stories that should be told.