Top LGBT events of 2009

Because everyone seems to love top ten lists, whether they be about movies or books or world events, I've done some thinking about the top LGBT events of 2009.  For years I've compiled lists like these in my mind.  Now that I have the chance to actually write one of these lists out, here it is!

It was a big year for LGBT rights.  It wasn't necessarily the best of times and the worst of times, but it most definitely was a mixed bag.  But a mixed bag is certainly better than a bag filled with coal.  Here, then, are what I consider the events that most affected the LGBT community in no particular order.  I'll do five today and five tomorrow.

1. Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States.  Nothing seemed to epitomize the state of LGBT rights better than the inauguration.  We finally had a gay friendly president in the White House.  But opening the ceremony was Rick Warren, a minister who did not allow LGBT people into his church and who compared LGBT relationships with incest.  Then again, openly gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson gave the invocation to the inaugural week.  But his prayer wasn't televised.

2. Marriage equality comes to New Hampshire, Vermont,  and Iowa. Both New Hampshire and Vermont had civil union laws on the book and both states expanded LGBT rights to marriages with a modicum of opposition.   These two victories should serve as a reminder that there are many ways to get to same-sex marriage rights, and civil unions may be oneof them. Same-sex marriage in Iowa was legalized through the Supreme Court.  And let's not forget Washington, DC, which will offer same-sex marriage in 2010 unless the US Congress steps in, something they are unlikely to do.  Remember this when we are lamenting about Maine, New York, and California. And let's no forget international progress, including the passage of a same-sex marriage bill in Mexico City.


3. Ted Kennedy dies.  It would be hard to find a politician who understood the nature of oppression and the difficulty in acquiring one's civil rights than Ted Kennedy.  He will be sorely missed.

4. Sean Penn wins the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk.  Not only was his characterization of Harvey Milk brilliant, in his speech at the Oscars in February he explained to millions of people why proposition 8 was deeply immoral.


5. Annise Parker is elected Mayor of Houston.  When the fourth largest city in th country -- and a Southern City at that -- elects an openly gay mayor, despite vicious attacks against her because of she is a lesbian, then it is time to celebrate.


  
Tomorrow: five more to add to the list.  Most likely written on the New York Thruway on our trip to Toronto.  I received a mobile modum for Christmas. Will it lead to convenience or obsession?  I'm afraid I already know the answer.

Congrats to Annise Parker

We should all offer our congratulations to Annise Parker.  Saturday night was an extraordinary moment in Houston and LGBT history.   An openly gay woman is now the mayor of the 4th largest city in the United States.  How can we not celebrate?

But after the celebrations, we need to let her govern.  Despite Houston's vote yesterday, it is still a city that could, to put it mildly, be a little more gay friendly.  The voters recently passed a referendum prohibiting Houston from offering domestic partnership benefits.  It's now in the Houston charter.

I love that Annise Parker was elected last night, even as I wrestle with the contradiction that Houston voters also don't want to treat her as an equal.  But Annise Parker is a pragmatic progressive.  She has spoken often about the step by step, chipping away process of gaining equal rights.  Like many of us, she was deeply disappointed in California and Maine.  Her response has been to forge ahead, running for mayor of one of America's largest cities, and winning.  She believes that bigotry is dismantled one relationship at a time.  She has been given a position of enormous importance to do just that.  In her new position she may not push many of the LGBT causes that I and others might like her to, but she will chip away at the homophobia that characterized much of the campaign just by being a great mayor.  She will slowly show the electorate the great irony and insult of electing a woman mayor of a city in which she is also treated as a second class citizen.

She needs to do it her way.  It has worked so far.  The best thing we can do is support her and let her govern the way she knows how to govern.  We need to trust her and not hold her up to our personal image of what a "gay mayor" should be.

Political news

Many blogs are reporting that openly gay mayoral candidate Annise Parker has been dealing with homophobic attacks and that top supporters of her opponent, Gene Locke, have been funding these attacks.  Locke has denied any connections but according to the latest finance reports, two members of Locke's finance committee both gave $20,000 each to the PAC of conservative political activist Steven Hotze, who has a long history of opposing LGBT candidates. The Houston Chronicle reports that Holtze sent a mailer to voters last week urging them not to vote for candidates who were “endorsed by gay lesbian political action committee."  Parker has a slim lead over Locke in the polls.  We should know this Saturday who wins.

Could there be an openly gay Speaker of the House of Representatives in California?  It's looking more and more like a possibility, although we've certainly learned that when it comes to gay candidates and appointments, anything can happen at the last minute.  According to Capitol Weekly, "First-term Assemblyman John Perez, an ally of organized labor and cousin of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has secured commitments from members of his caucus that could make him the next Assembly speaker."  The vote could tale place as early as next week.  If it happens, Perez will be the first openly gay speaker in any state history.

Houston, we have a problem

 After our loss on the Maine ballot initiative, I wrote about some of the LGBT candidates who had won elections across the country.  Especially encouraging was Annise Parker, who topped the ticket to win one of two run-off slots for Mayor of Houston.  Her sexual orientation was not really an issue in her campaign.  She has children and has been with her partner for two decades.  She never focused on her identity, and most politicians didn’t either.

Well, that has all changed.  Anti-gay activists are in panic mode over the possibility that one of the top ten US cities could be run by a --gasp--lesbian. In fact they are so panicked that they are launching a campaign not against what Parker stands for, but who she is.  They are warning people of the “gay takeover” of Houston.  (Their words, not mine.)  I’ve tried to envision what that might look like.  Hmmm.  Pink Fridays instead of casual Fridays?  Changing the name of the Houston Astros to the Houston Castros?  Making heterosexual marriage unconstitutional?  Replacing the Star Spangled Banner with  YMCA or In the Navy? The possibilities are endless.

But the opponents are dead serious.  The other candidate in the race, Gene Locke, had previously distanced himself from the anti-gay groups.  Now he’s not so sure he can live without them.  He is courting endorsements from these folks, including a man named Steve Hotze, who in the past recruited eight city council candidates -- a straight slate -- to run solely on an anti-gay platform.  Said David Welch, the leader of one of these groups, “The bottom line is that we didn’t pick the battle, she did, by making her agenda and sexual preference a central part of her campaign.”  What’s so ironic is that she’s barely mentioned her orientation.  And by the way, aren’t candidates supposed to make agendas the central part of their campaigns?

Houston is generally a gay friendly city with a large LGBT population.  It remains to be seen whether LGBT folks will feel as welcome there after the vicious and hateful campaign.

Thanks to Gaypolitics.com and Gayrights.change.org for much of the info in this post.