Posted: December 14, 2009, 1:21 PM by Ron Nurwisah
Politics
Gay-rights advocates in the U.S. are celebrating the election of Annise Parker as the mayor of Houston, Texas. Parker, a long-time gay activist turned politician took 53% of the vote in America's fourth-largest city. From USA Today:
Saturday's election made Houston the largest city in the USA to choose a gay mayor. Annise Parker's victory came in a state that overwhelmingly voted to outlaw gay marriage four years ago and in a city where voters have rejected offering benefits to the same-sex partners of government employees.
"The fact that an openly gay candidate wins for mayor in the nation's fourth-largest city, in the South, in Texas, shows that when Americans get to know gay people as people, not as stereotypes, their resistance to treating gay people equally reduces," said Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry, which advocates for legalizing gay marriage.
The Houston Chronicle chalked up her win to her long history in local politics and her grassroots network:
She was the policy wonk, a community activist who had won hard-fought elections for city council and controller and who had been a city official for a dozen years — and who, by the way, happened to be gay. Although she wasn't a particularly exciting candidate, she ran a cohesive, focused campaign that relied on her years-long practice of grass-roots politics and her lengthy experience grappling with neighborhood issues at City Hall. She sought the endorsements of the same heavyweight political groups that swung in behind her opponent, but when the checks went the other way she countered with what turned out to be a more potent coalition of interest groups: liberals and progressives, feminists and gays, civic activists and moderate Republicans, particularly female Republicans.
A number of anti-gay flyers did sully the campaign but many people say that they didn't have much of an impact on the race. From the Advocate:
"This is an important milestone for our country, but it's equally important to know voters in Houston chose Annise even after a flurry of antigay campaigns designed to divide and distract voters," Victory Fund president Chuck Wolfe wrote in an e-mail immediately after Parker's win. "This time the extremists failed. Houstonians rejected their tactics and voted for the most experienced and competent candidate to lead this city forward."
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