Opinion

Elisa Chan reveals homophobic views in secret recording

“So disgusting!”

That exclamation escaped the lips of District 9 Councilwoman Elisa Chan on May 21 in her City Hall office, where she was meeting with members of her staff to discuss the city's proposal to update its nondiscrimination ordinance, adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the course of the conversation, Chan expressed her unvarnished views on homosexuality, which range from befuddled to intolerant.

She revealed that she believes being gay is a choice and that gay people should not be allowed to adopt children, and she voiced revulsion toward the LGBT community.

Unbeknown to the councilwoman, an aide, James Stevens, was secretly recording the meeting on his iPhone. (He's now a former aide; Stevens, 28, quit this week.)

In the recording, which Stevens gave to me, the councilwoman and her aides strategize how to oppose the ordinance publicly without revealing her feelings.

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“My decision to record in the first place was that, during the staff meetings, we weren't really discussing the ordinance itself,” Stevens told me. “We were really just talking about ways to appeal to the (voting) base and to get them fired up as opposed to analyzing the ordinance.”

Chan “is only focused on her political future,” he continued. “She's not focused on the policy itself and how it's going to really affect the city. We spent 80 percent of that meeting talking about how disgusting homosexuality is.”

Reached at City Hall on Thursday, Chan wouldn't confirm a rumor that she plans to run for mayor in 2015.

When I asked if she knew Stevens, she said, “No, I don't think that rings a bell ... James Stevens.”

“He works for you,” I said.

“Oh, James, yeah sure,” she said.

But Chan balked at defending any comments in the recording.

“I think that's in a private setting and I don't know if that's — I need to hear that recording to know,” she said. “I'm not quite sure what you're talking about so maybe you can play that back to me. We talk a lot of things in the staff meetings, so I wanted to know also under what context.”

At one point in the recording, amid a tittering exchange about pansexual people, Chan interjects her opinion on the nature of homosexuality.

“You know, to be quite honest, I know this is not politically correct,” she says. “I never bought in that you are born, that you are born gay. I can't imagine it.”

As the talk shifts back to pansexual people, whose sexual orientations encompass all gender identities, Chan asks, “How can that be?”

“I will say, 'Strip down! What equipment do you have?'” she continues. “I'm telling you. Crazy. We're getting to crazy realm.”

Stevens agrees that it's “politically incorrect in some circles” to claim that people choose to be gay.

“The newspaper will get to you,” he warns.

“That's why I never would say that outside because they kill me,” Chan says. “When I say that it's ... behavioral preference, they say that, 'No, you're born with it.' But I never bought into that.”

An aide suggests that homosexuality could be linked to biology: “Americans can, with almost a 90 percent success rate, identify gay people by their face alone,” he says.

“No, that's because they shave,” Chan said. “And I also think they could take hormone shots.”

The conversation shifts to the possibility of Chan submitting an Op-Ed, presumably to the San Antonio Express-News, regarding her stance on the nondiscrimination ordinance.

“Become a culture warrior on this one,” advises Jeff Bazan, who was Chan's chief of policy at the time of the recording. Bazan now works as chief of staff to District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg.

(Earlier in the recording, Bazan warns, “The road we're going ... incest and being able to marry animals, that's all going to happen,” echoing red-meat Republicans such as Rick Santorum.

(Late Thursday, Bazan gave a statement: “I was basically explaining the viewpoint that some people have on the gay marriage issue. What I said was wrong and I deeply regret it. I can say that those comments, which were intended to be purely political, do not reflect my heart. Councilman Nirenberg, whom I currently serve and support, has made it clear that discrimination is not negotiable, and I am proud to work for him.”)

“You get the most political points by standing up for traditional values on this one,” Bazan continues in the recording. “This is not an economic argument. This isn't a small government argument. This is a social, cultural argument right here and ... you're going to score the biggest points by taking that stand.”

But Chan seems to reject that strategy, opting instead to cloud the issue and conceal her views.

“This is my philosophy, guys,” she says. “Whatever you want to do in your bedroom is none of my business, but do not impose your view on other people, especially becoming policy ... because personally, I think it's just disgusting just to even think about. All the definitions. ...

“But I don't want to go against, necessarily ... I don't want to beat up anybody,” she continues. “Maybe what we can do, can we maybe throw some questionable confusions like, OK, this 'transgender,' because the definition is so broad... Maybe I say I was not educated on what transgender is about.”

Later, Chan slips back into candor.

“By the way, this is politically incorrect,” she tells her aides. “I don't think homosexual people should do adoption. They should be banned by adoption. You're going to confuse those kids. They should be banned.

“If you wanted to choose that lifestyle, we don't want to discriminate you, but you shouldn't affect the young people,” she continues. “How terrible. ... They're going to be confused. You see two men go into a bedroom. You see two women kissing. Is that not confusing? It's confusing.

“It is actually, what you call, suggestive, for the kids to be corrupt, which is against nature. I'm telling you, anything that is against nature is not right.”

None of this intolerance, of course, should appear in the Op-Ed.

“Can you guys come up with a draft?” she asks her aides. “Come up with draft with all the good, those arguments we talk as a speaking point, in terms of we're addressing an issue that is not an issue. This is national politics again at the council level.

“This is another layer of bureaucracy, that we have not heard any discrimination,” she continues. “And then add in the family value in there. ... Maybe I'll use the industries, that we have a trend, that is, maybe I'll use we have water rates and CPS rates to worry about.”

Above all, Chan says, she does not want to be seen as disdainful of people's “choices.”

“We do not want to attack any group,” she says. “I'm respectful of their choices, right? Even though I don't believe that, but they're free people, they can do whatever they want to do. But ... don't just come back and say you're being discriminated.”

Chan's own revulsion and intolerance, however, are the seeds of discrimination. Concealing it allows her to deny a need for change.

The power she wields as a councilwoman to shape the debate obliges her to be upfront about her own beliefs. Her fellow council members, then, invested with crucial votes, could better decide whether the LGBT community deserves their help.