Friday November 17, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 46 |
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Saturday, Mar 13, 2010
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Lesbian Notions by Libby Post |
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| Christmas in November | ||
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I'm still a little dazed - I was up pretty late on election night - but I'm certainly not confused. And neither is the country. No longer content to be swayed by the politics of fear and hate, middle Americans came out in record numbers last Tuesday and shouted from the rooftops - "We want change!" And change is what they got. President Bush and the Republican Party have been put on notice. The Democrats have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, a change that was 12 years in the making. And the improbable is now reality - both Montana and Virginia have turned blue, giving the U.S. Senate to the Democrats as well. The election is welcome news - certainly for us tried-and-true Dems, but also for the lesbian and gay community. Nothing was more satisfying than to see Rick "man on dog" Santorum, one of Pennsylvania's two Republican U.S. senators, become history. Santorum is one of the most disgustingly homophobic elected officials of all time. He's been a top Bush apologist, who carried the radical Christian right's water, and he will now be replaced by Bob Casey, the son of a former Pennsylvania governor. Just as sweet as Santorum's exit from office is the fact that his chief of staff _and_ communications director, Robert Traynham, an openly gay African-American man, will soon be out of a job. I, for one, don't know how Traynham can get up in the morning knowing he helped elect and put words in the mouth of one of this country's biggest gay-haters. When you look at the endorsements made by the Human Rights Campaign, we really did pretty well. Of HRC's 231 endorsees, 208 won, while only 16 lost. (At press time, seven races were still undecided.) When you break down the numbers, there were 18 senators, 179 members of the House, and 11 governors elected who purportedly support our issues. Of the 51 key Congressional and Gubernatorial races that HRC identified, 15 candidates won in the House, and nine were successful in the Senate. HRC's president, Joe Solmonese, told me the day after the election that his group's top priorities were three Senate races - Casey in Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota. All three won. But HRC's strategy went beyond those top races. "The greatest hope for our community rested in our ability to be a powerful political force in key races and do it in a way that people felt our presence," said Solmonese. "We looked within those states, and as a national organization, considered what else we could do in each of them to effect change for our community." In Minnesota, HRC put considerable resources into the state - both raising and spending money to organize the community and impact the race. Klobuchar beat her Republican challenger, Mark Kennedy, in an open race with 58 percent of the vote. Tim Walz, a Democrat endorsed by HRC, defeated an incumbent U.S. Congressman, Gil Gutknecht; and furthermore, according to HRC's website, that state's legislature will have a "fair-minded majority in 2007." The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) did a bit of its own election analysis and concluded that all the co-sponsors of the bill to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" who sought re-election were successful, except for one outstanding race in Connecticut. SLDN also said that no one was thrown out of office for supporting the repeal, and that, according to a recent Gallup poll, nearly four in five Americans support gays and lesbian serving openly in the military. Perhaps with the new Congressional leadership and the politically expedient exit of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, we'll actually see some movement on this issue. The military is already hard-pressed to fill its quotas, so not letting us serve is just plain stupid. Unfortunately, all but one of the same-sex marriage bans passed. Arizona turned away from hatred and defeated its anti-gay-marriage ballot measure, and South Dakota's vote was surprisingly very close - 52 percent for, 48 percent against. Virginia passed its measure, but not after a long, hard fight and the organizing of a terrific coalition that will hopefully continue to battle for our rights. While much attention has been placed on the national scene, we can't forget that politics is also local, and that we did pretty well on that level, too. Patricia Todd, the first openly gay person elected anywhere in Alabama, will serve in the state House of Representatives. Kathy Webb shares that same honor in Arkansas. Al McAffrey will be the first openly gay member of Oklahoma's state House, while Jolie Justus of Missouri, Ed Murray of Washington, and Matt McCoy of Iowa will be the first openly gay people to serve in their respective state Senates. Success on the national, state and local levels - this really is Christmas in November. Libby Post is the founding chair of the Empire State Pride Agenda and a political commentator on public radio, on the Web, and in print media. She can be reached care of this publication or at LesbianNotions@qsyndicate.com._ |
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