Holding his hands in a pantomime of the scales of justice, Richard Selwach weighs the rights of a "45-year-old pervert" against those of a "10-year-old girl" while standing in his pawnshop on Thursday.
"I'm going to side with the little girl," he said of his support for the controversial Charter Amendment 1.
Selwach is one of three challengers to the At Large Gainesville city commission seat of Jeanna Mastrodicasa.
He describes himself as a conservative libertarian and campaigns primarily on the removal of Mastrodicasa from the City Commission and support for Amendment 1.
The amendment would nullify Chapter 8 of the Gainesville Code of Ordinances, titled "Discrimination," removing protections for transgender, lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
Gainesville would then rely on the Florida Civil Rights Act to provide anti-discrimination protections at the state level.
Selwach feels that the ordinance currently leaves women and children open to sexual predators in public bathrooms. He is also skeptical of transvestites, he said.
"I don't want men with breast implants and 10-inch dicks using the bathroom next to little girls," he said, after pointing out his distaste for media censorship of his admittedly harsh viewpoints.
On student issues, Selwach opposes recent restrictions placed on bars, which were largely championed by Mastrodicasa.
The ordinance places stricter age restrictions on bars which habitually receive underage drinking violations.
He feels that the ordinance punishes well-behaved students for the mistakes of a few, Selwach said.
"It's gonna kill downtown," he said.
