On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog — but that adage proved incorrect for Thomas Gardella, whose online insult of an LGBT community member was traced to the Sag Harbor Village mayor.
“What is that thing in the background? A guy or girl? Some creature?” Gardella commented on an Instagram video of a couple dancing to Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” on March 6. Three days later, the woman who posted the video, South Texas animal rights activist Rebecca Chavez, tracked the mayor down and alerted the village. The following day, village officials announced they were investigating the mayor for disparaging members of the LGBT community.
