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Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is expected to easily win reelection for her eighth term in Congress on Tuesday. Norton has counted on gay voters in past elections.


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LOU CHIBBARO JR.





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LOCAL

Gay issues rated in D.C. school races
Democrats, Schwartz expected to win council seats

LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, October 29, 2004

Gay activists are evaluating the positions of candidates for the D.C. Board of Education on issues such as same-sex dating among students and the right of students to form gay clubs in schools in an election next week where few, if any, surprises are expected for the big name candidates at the top of the ticket.

In a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nine to one margin, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is expected to defeat President Bush in the District of Columbia by a landslide on Nov. 2, capturing the city’s three electoral votes.

The Democratic candidates for seats on the D.C. Council who emerged as winners in the city’s September primary are also expected to breeze to victory over their Republican or Statehood Green Party rivals. Among them is former mayor Marion Barry, who ousted incumbent Democrat Sandra Allen in the primary for the Ward 8 Council seat.

All have expressed support for gay and AIDS related issues, although some have received higher ratings than others from the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance [see chart on Page 10], which assesses the candidates on a wide range of issues of interest to the gay community.

The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, a local gay group, is supporting the Democratic nominees, said club president David Meadows.

The Council’s lone Republican, Carol Schwartz, who enjoys widespread support from Democrats, including gay residents, is set to become another winner, according to political observers, despite her opposition to same-sex marriage.

The other at-large candidates are the Statehood Greens’ Laurent Ross and independent Tony Dominguez.

D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a longtime proponent of gay rights, is the odds-on favorite to join Schwartz and the Democratic Council candidates in victory on Nov. 2.


ANC races hold all the drama
This leaves the races for two D.C. school board seats and dozens of contested Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats as the only races where the winners are yet to be determined.

Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, known as ANCs, serve as advisory bodies on regulatory issues in neighborhoods throughout the city. They play a key role in advising the city on the approval of licenses for nightlife and entertainment establishments such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants.

At least 11 openly gay candidates are running for ANC seats, with some of them on the opposite side of regulatory policies that gay nightlife advocates say could be harmful to gay bars.

In the school board race for District 1, which includes Wards 1 and 2, four candidates are competing for the seat being vacated by incumbent Julie Mikuta, who announced she would not seek re-election.

Only two of the four District 1 candidates, Keenan R. Keller and Christopher D. McKeon, completed a questionnaire on gay related school issues for GLAA, a small group of local gay activists.

Keller received a GLAA rating of +8 while McKeon, a member of the anti-gay Unification Church headed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, received a –7. GLAA rates candidates on a scale of –10 to +10.

The other two candidates, Jeff Smith and Eleanor Johnson, received a GLAA rating of 0 because they did not return the questionnaire. Smith stated at a meeting of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club last week that he supports gay rights and favors the gay and AIDS related school issues.

Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham and gay at-large school board member Mirian Saez have endorsed Smith, saying they believe he is supportive on gay issues and has the overall qualifications needed to serve on the school board.

“I would not have endorsed him if I thought he was not supportive on these important issues,” Graham said.

However, during his appearance before the Stein Club, Smith did not specifically commit himself to the policies that Keller expressed support for in the GLAA questionnaire. Among them is a call by GLAA for the recognition of the “right of our public school students to organize clubs to promote lesbian and gay civil rights, to combat homophobic violence and prejudice, and to provide socializing opportunities for gay youth.”

Other issues that Keller supported in the GLAA questionnaire include the following:

  • the right of students to “bring dates of the same sex” to school proms and other school functions;
  • efforts by the gay parents group PFLAG to provide “gay positive books” in school libraries and opposing efforts by school administrators to censor or ban such books in school libraries;
  • allowing teachers to invite openly gay speakers to address their classes and answer students’ questions about homosexuality;
  • a comprehensive sex education program that “teaches that homosexuality is a part of the normal range of human sexuality, consistent with existing school policy”; and
  • support for the D.C. school system’s existing condom availability program, which allows school nurses to provide condoms to high school students under certain circumstances.

In his ...

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