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LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Most gay political activists, like their straight counterparts, will likely be
riveted to television sets on election night watching the returns in a presidential
race expected to have a major impact on gay rights issues.
But a small cadre of gay election strategists and fund-raisers with the D.C.-based
Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund plan to look toward the state houses in Idaho,
Missouri, New Mexico, the Carolinas and other states, where a growing number
of openly gay candidates for state legislatures are said to have a good chance
of winning.
“The state legislatures are where the big battles over gay marriage and
other issues of importance to our community are taking place,” said Dave
DeCicco, the Victory Fund’s spokesperson. “Where there is not a
single gay voice in a legislature, our community is not being heard.”
Twenty-eight gay candidates endorsed by the Victory Fund in state legislative
races across the country have a good chance of winning, DeCicco said, following
campaigns marked by gay-baiting as well as strong support from hometown newspapers
and straight allies.
The gay candidates for state legislative seats are expected to bring far better
results than the Victory Fund’s efforts to help elect open gays to the
U.S. House of Representatives.
The lobby group began this year with high hopes that three gay candidates would
win U.S. House seats. But two of the candidates — Democrats Jim Carpenter
of Wisconsin and Cathy Woolard of Georgia — lost in primary contests to
opposing Democrats.
Democrat Jim Stork of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., abruptly dropped out of his race
after winning his party’s nomination and even speaking at the Democratic
National Convention in Boston.
Stork has said a heart-related ailment forced him to end his campaign against
Republican incumbent Clay Shaw, who was considered the favorite but potentially
beatable.
The three openly gay House incumbents — Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Tammy
Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) — are expected to win their re-election
bids.
The Victory Fund endorsed Frank and Baldwin. DeCicco said Kolbe, whom the group
endorsed in the past, did not apply for an endorsement this year. The Human
Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, gave Frank,
Baldwin and Kolbe a perfect 100 percent rating on gay and AIDS issues for the
108th Congress, which covers 2003 and 2004.
The Victory Fund has also remained on the sidelines in another congressional
race with an openly gay candidate. Lesbian Democratic activist Cynthia Matthews
is challenging Rep. David Dreier, a 12-term incumbent representing California’s
26th congressional district, located northeast of Los Angeles.
Matthews’ campaign got a boost in news media coverage last month when
Dreier, a conservative Republican with a poor voting record on gay rights, refused
to disclose his sexual orientation in a radio interview that touched on an outing
campaign targetting him.
Instead, Dreier stressed that he voted against a proposed constitutional amendment
to ban gay marriage but declined to say why he voted against the interests of
gays in nearly all other cases.
Matthews said political insiders in Dreier’s district have known he is
gay for years but never spoke out publicly about it. She said she chose to run
against Dreier because she disagrees with him on the issues.
“Here’s a gay congressman who has been in office for 24 years and
has voted against his own people,” Matthews said. “It’s not
because he’s gay” that she’s critical of him on gay issues,
she said. “It’s because he’s a hypocrite.”
Robert Haaland is the leading contender in the race for
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Haaland would be the first transgendered
person elected to that body if he earns more than 50 percent of the vote
in a 22-person race on Tuesday. (Photo by AP) |
Matthews said she never submitted the paperwork to seek a Victory Fund endorsement.
But she acknowledged that the group would likely have deemed her candidacy non-viable
against an incumbent considered to be entrenched in a Republican-majority district.
She said she entered the race before Dreier was outed and never expected to
see his sexual orientation surface in the midst of her campaign to unseat him.
In other races, openly gay candidates for state legislatures and county and
municipal government offices have drawn sharp opposition and curious reactions
by the public and the media.
One of the strongest reactions surfaced in New Hanover County, N.C., where
lesbian county commissioner Julia Boseman, a Democrat, is challenging State
Senator Woody White, a conservative Republican and supporter of former U.S.
Senator Jesse Helms.
White’s campaign purchased newspaper ads this week noting that Boseman
would be the state’s first openly gay legislator and would pursue a “liberal,
activist homosexual agenda” if elected.
The ads, some of which were paid for by the state Republican Party, declared
that Boseman had been endorsed by the Victory Fund, which it described as a
homosexual group based in Washington, D.C.
The ads angered the Wilmington, N.C., Star News, where some of the ads had
been placed. The newspaper abruptly withdrew its endorsement of White, saying
it strongly disapproved of his decision to attack Boseman based on her sexual
orientation.
In Boise, Idaho, lesbian candidate Nicole LeFavour has drawn attention as a
candidate for the Idaho State House of Representatives, where she is considered
to have a good chance of becoming the first open gay to win a seat in the state
legislature. In what some political observers see as an unexpected turn of events,
LeFavour’s candidacy appears to be gaining steam while the chief sponsor
of an anti-gay bill to ban same-sex marriage in Idaho, State Rep. Henry Kulczyk,
was ousted from office in the Republican primary.
LeFavour is a Democrat running against GOP challenger Alicia Cassarino, who,
as of this week, raised only $1,250 for her campaign, compared to the $65,000
raised by LeFavour, according to the Associated Press. The Victory Fund endorsed
LeFavour.
In another election development, voters in Cincinnati are poised to decide
whether to repeal an anti-gay ordinance that won voter approval by a lopsided
margin in 1993. The ordinance prevents the city government from adopting gay
rights laws, including laws aimed at banning discrimination based on sexual
orientation.
Anti-gay groups pushed for placing the ordinance before the city’s voters
following the highly publicized prosecution of an art gallery that displayed
graphic, homoerotic photos taken by the late gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe,
a development that appeared to inflame anti-gay sentiment in the city.
According to the AP, supporters of the repeal effort believe the city has become
more tolerant in the ensuing 11 years. They also have expressed concern that
the city is losing tourist and convention revenue because potential visitors
have been boycotting the city over the anti-gay ordinance.
“The world has changed a great deal in the last 11 years with more gay
people willing to be open about their sexual orientation, more of the public
willing to embrace diversity and more businesses recognizing that discrimination
is wrong,” the AP quoted Gary Wright, chair of Citizens to Restore Fairness,
as saying.
Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.
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