John K. O'Toole, Signer of Anti-Gay Petition and Candidate Marches in Boston Pride 2011

[Ian David]

John K. O'Toole, Signer of Anti-Gay Petition and Candidate for Boston City Councillor, Marches in Boston Pride 2011

What Is Being Described by Some Boston LGBT Who Attended Saturday's Boston Pride March 2011, The Appearance of John K. O'Toole, Candidate for District Three Boston City Councillor, as "A Misleading Representation of His Support for the LGBT Community," the Candidate Himself Begs to Differ

Whether it was activism on the part of a so far "anonymous" person advocating for the LGBT Community or a political stunt perpetrated by one of the campaigns in the Boston City Councillor, District Three race, Saturday's Boston Pride March yielded the name of one particular candidate, John K. O'Toole, who did in fact sign VoteOnMarriage.org's Anti-Gay Marriage Petition back in 2005.

KnowThyNeighbor.org received an email Saturday from Alex Scheufler who attended Boston Pride 2011 of a photo of one of at least a dozen laminated posters along the parade route which copied candidate, O'Toole's, name and address from the KnowThyNeighbor.org website which houses the Massachusetts Secretary of State's Database of the list of signatories on the Ballot Initiative from 2005 which if successful would have retracted the Goodridge Decision and ended Marriage Equality here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. These posters which faced inward to the crowd included a red circled X and clearly and boldly spelled out "Don't Elect John O'Toole, He Works Against Us."

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John O'Toole claims to have signed many petitions during the 2005 ballot initiative cycle including beer and wine in supermarkets, dog rights etc. He made it very clear to KnowThyNeighbor.org that he is not happy with his name being associated with the Anti-Gay Marriage petition and that he has taken very forthright actions to support Marriage Equality from political and personal perspectives. The former as being a co-signer of a 2007 petition which was drawn up by the Dorchester pro-LGBT activist group, DotOUT, as a tool to lobby Senator Jack Hart to switch his vote on Marriage Equality before the last vote. John O'Toole has also marched in three separate Boston Pride Parades and when asked by us, he immediately spoke out in favor of the current Transgender Equal Rights Bill which is in committee and before the Massachusetts Legislature.

More:
http://knowthyneighbor.blogs.com/home/2011/06/john-k-otoole-signer-of-anti-gay-petition-and-candidate-for-boston-city-councillor-marches-in-boston.html