First the tweets, then the e-mails, then the breathless coverage on the Internet and in the mainstream media.
An out lesbian had been elected Mayor of Houston.
That’s right; at the same time the local parliament in Uganda was debating making being gay a capital crime, Houston voters were electing Annise Parker -whom they had previously elected six consecutive times to public office- be their next chief executive.
Predictably, some in the opposition went bonkers.
Yet, Ms. Parker’s election reflects something almost extraordinary, particularly in so conservative a state as Texas.
The election itself was somewhat out of the ordinary, pitting an African American former City Attorney, Gene Locke, against an out lesbian. Not long ago, a mayoral election in almost any large Southern city (except perhaps Atlanta or Miami) would usually have involved a choice between white, well-heeled, straight, men. To that extent, Houston’s mayoral election -like the historic 2008 Presidential election- represents yet another example of the crumbling of barriers that had kept women and minorities from participating fully in the political life of the commonwealth.
Yet if we are rapidly moving toward a politics in which gender, race, and denominational religious affiliation are no longer seen as disqualifying, our progress is still incomplete. Too often, every step forward generates its own retrograde backlash, just as every threatened deviation from formerly accepted orthodoxies (or orthopraxy), calls forth what President Lyndon Johnson used to call “frontlash:” pre-emptive efforts to preserve a threatened status quo, particularly when it comes to maintaining the political dominance of heretofore privileged groups or preventing former “have-nots” from accessing the levers of political power.
Thus, while race, gender, and religion are increasingly seen as irrelevant to a candidate’s qualifications for office, there remains a stubborn insistence in some quarters that an LGBT person (or an atheist for that matter) should not hold public office. Such views certainly surfaced in Houston during the campaign as anti-GLBT activists and social conservatives sought to play the “queer card,” portraying Mayor-elect Parker’s sexual orientation as per se disqualifying.
Yet, as Ms. Parker herself noted, Houston voters had previously elected her to office six consecutive times, even knowing of her sexuality, which she never concealed.
Still, that opponents should have sought to play the “queer card” in the Houston mayoral campaign is still disappointing, but not surprising. Every effort by formerly marginalized or excluded groups to secure an authentic place at the table has been resisted, sometimes savagely, by those who already have their place there, and are disinclined to share make room for others who may not look, live, love, work, worship, or vote the same way. For political “have-nots,” achieving a place at the table is often a difficult, incremental process. To mix metaphors, it is like eating the elephant, one bite at a time.
Now to some, the election of an out lesbian as Mayor of Houston -or the designation of an out gay man to be the next speaker of the California Assembly (succeeding, by the way, the first African-American woman to hold that post)- is not, or should not be, news. To these people, sexuality, like race, gender, or religion, should not be an issue; none of these matters should be a factor in determining who is best qualified.
Yet, our society is still a long way from seeing things that way. Almost perversely, the election of America’s first African-American President has stirred up racial tensions and the election of an out lesbian in Houston will no doubt stir up similar tensions.
Here in the Desert, with its large and largely integrated gay and lesbian community, we have been fortunate in recent years to avoid some of the uglier manifestations of political homophobia; out LGBT people are regularly elected to serve on local city councils, and in large measure, our local politics and elections have been largely free of efforts to play the sexuality card. Ironically, many of the same people who oppose marriage equality and thus voted for Proposition 8 had no difficulty voting for an openly gay candidate in the very same election.
Nonetheless, social and political activists of every stripe often try to nationalize local issues and developments. Culture warriors, angered by what happened in Houston, may well transfer that anger to our Pleasant Desert, as they nationalized the Proposition 8 campaign last year. If that happens, the challenge won’t just be for incumbent LGBT officeholders and GLBT candidates to take lessons from Annise Parker’s successful campaign, but also for the residents of this Valley to send a resounding “NO” to outside culture warriors who may try to divide us against one another in the service of a divisive agenda most of us rejected when we came here to live, work, and play.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works (but rarely plays) in Cathedral City, where he serves in the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the City of Cathedral City or its Redevelopment Agency.
