Gainesville, FL residents went to the polls yesterday for a runoff election that would determine their city's next mayor. The candidates were openly gay city commissioner Craig Lowe, who led the initial round of voting by garnering 40.13 percent of the ballots cast.
His opponent Don Marsh is a businessman and hater who ran on the campaign promise of overturning the newly passed TBLG non-discrimination law. Marsh got 29.13 percent of the ballots cast on March 16 to get into the runoff.
The haters are especially ticked off at Lowe not only because of his sexual orientation, but because he supported the 2008 trans inclusive anti discrimination ordinance. Lowe was one of the leaders in the effort to defeat an amendment designed to kill the law.
The mayoral runoff has been marred by the usual hatemongering from the 'christian' conservafools. It has led to some ugly displays of homophobia such as the pink flyer mocking Lowe that found itself planted on car windshields in the runup to election day.. 
All the back an forth of the campaign came down to whether the progressive side or the regressive side could turn out their voters. For the moment, it looks like Craig Lowe did and you can call him mayor*.
With all 34 precincts in, Craig Lowe had 6,098 votes or 50.14% with Don Marsh getting 6,063 votes or 49.86%. Since it's less than a 1% margin a recount is forthcoming.
Once it's completed, we'll know for certain who the next mayor of Gainesville, FL will be. Let's hope it's the candidate who will unite all the city's citizens and not the one offer no more than just hate and shady divisiveness.
