From New Mayor, Not A Peep On LGBTQ Dust-up...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Perhaps he said something in private, or maybe he simply wants no part of it. We may never know, as new Brownsville Mayor John Cowen appears to be after a low-key, laid-back official persona.

We looked for anything Cowen may have thrown-in on the recent, fiery, very-public LGBTQ brawl between City Commissioner Roy De Los Santos (see his photo below) and former mayor Pat Ahumada but found nothing on his Facebook page or on the City of Brownville website.

To what extent the issue roils "macho" Brownsville we do not know. A word or two from Cowen may have eased thing, but, there again, we don't know where he stands on the issue. Support for De Los Santos would have said something.

Backing Ahumada's harsh anti-LGBTQ position would also have been telling. We do concede that Ahumada's turgid message for pro-LGBTQ De Los Santos may have been a personal attack (as we wrote in an earlier story), although the issue on the table was Gay Rights.

Ahumada came into the ring unannounced. His style, as most of us in the news business have come to learn, is one of confronting things face-up and never turning his arrogant back from any given issue. He's in town, and he'll emerge whenever he feels like it. That's the Pat everyone knows.

Young Cowen is almost the exact opposite at this point in his city commission career. Cowen seeks an image of being a deep thinker and not one to carry his emotions on his sleeve. He will chime-in eventually, we say. Brownsville seems to have a lively LGBTQ community. The way that works is that LGBTQ types will have their say and await push back.

Ahumada has perhaps given the anti-LGBTQ crowd a template for how to do that.

Cowen, meanwhile, should worry about such brush fires.

And he should be upfront with leading the city on all fronts.

Brownsville is not just about cheap bars, drunks and second hand stores anymore...

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