Tourism head shouldn't have played the 'bigot' cards

By: John Railey | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: June 08, 2008

Winston-Salem, the place where, when all else fails, you can toss out the gay card and the race card.

That's the message that the president of Visit Winston-Salem, Bob McCoy, sent in last week's issue of USAE, a weekly newspaper of the travel industry (www.usaenews.com).

McCoy strongly suggested to writer Jonathan Trager that Ted Kaplan, the Forsyth County commissioner who is threatening to put the funding of McCoy's agency to better use elsewhere, is a bigot. "(Kaplan's) motivation is being questioned all over this community, and when he's proved wrong on one thing, he goes in another direction," McCoy told Trager. "So what's left? What's left is a president of an organization who's gay and whose number two is African-American."

Holy process of elimination.

Visit Winston-Salem markets the city and county and is overseen by the Tourism Development Authority. McCoy is the authority's administrator, and Kaplan, in addition to being a commissioner, sits on the TDA board. Kaplan has heated up the debate over Visit Winton-Salem's performance way more than he should have, such as when he said that, if he were employed there, he'd be looking for work. But I haven't heard him drag anybody's sexuality or race into this fight.

McCoy has always seemed to be a bright and decent guy. But in that article, he seemed to be grasping at bigot cards. Nobody's job should be in jeopardy because of his or her sexual orientation, and any public figure --including McCoy -- who makes such a suggestion should back it up publicly with facts. But last week, McCoy wasn't talking about the fire he started that everybody in town is talking about. Carmen Caruth, McCoy's "number two" person and another bright and decent person, wasn't talking, either.

McCoy withdrew a complaint he'd made to the ACLU about discrimination. But by late last week, he hadn't said a public word about his remarks to the trade newspaper.

McCoy's assistant referred me to McCoy's lawyer, Walter Holton. "Bob felt he was justified in making the statements he made to that newspaper, and he's not going to repeat them," Holton said. "In my estimation there's nothing to be gained by repeating those statements. I think they're somewhat unfortunate, and I think they're not necessarily helpful to the situation."

But Holton defended the work of McCoy's agency, and said that "this is a stressful situation for Bob and the other employees." If Kaplan is successful in ending funding to the TDA from the county's hotel-occupancy tax, Visit Winston-Salem would shut down. McCoy and the rest of the employees would lose their jobs.

McCoy is understandably upset. But rather than lob what appear to be unfounded accusations, he should be concentrating on a plan to cut his agency's expenses and enhance its work.

Nobody with any sense cares that he's gay. I've yet to hear any critics of Visit Winston-Salem attribute any problems at the agency to either McCoy's sexuality or Caruth's skin color. Kaplan said that what McCoy told the trade newspaper "is ridiculous and a sideshow to the real issue at hand, which is how the (agency's) money is spent. That's what this is all about."

Kaplan has raised questions about the fact that McCoy's partner is an employee of Visit Winston-Salem, and says he would do the same thing if a heterosexual couple were in the same situation. Such an arrangement does raise questions of favoritism, whatever the sexual orientation of the couple involved. Hobie Cawood, the chairman of the TDA board, said he had questions when the partner was hired, but McCoy does not directly supervise his partner and the situation has "worked out fine."

McCoy's comments to the trade newspaper haven't "worked out fine."

Almost anybody in the heat of a big argument can get stupid and play a gay card, a race card, a Hispanic card or any other kind of unjustified accusation he can think of. Almost anybody can dive off the deep end.

But a guy whose job is to market the city and county, to make them look so good that people will want to come here to spend their money?

McCoy should have known better.

■ John Railey writes local editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at jrailey@wsjournal.com.