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The Silver Lining For The LGBT Community.
Despite the outcome in Maine last night, as Ben Smith pointed out, several LGBT candidates won local elections or stand a good chance of winning as of this morning. Annise Parker, a candidate for mayor of Houston looks to have a good chance of winning a runoff election there. In North Carolina, Chapel Hill elected Mark Kleinschmidt mayor.
But I think the most interesting result was in Detroit, where a city that is 80 percent black elected a black, openly gay candidate, Charles Pugh, city council president. Black voters are a key element of the liberal coalition, but they also tend to be cold toward marriage equality. Pugh may be a sign of things moving in the other direction. The other thing is that, while I'm not so familiar with Detroit, any city with such a large percentage of African Americans is also bound to have an active black LGBT community, which I think makes a great deal of difference when it comes to persuading black voters about such things.
-- A. Serwer
COMMENTS (1)
Kalamazoo MI also posted a significant win for its anti-discrimination ordinance. While the City Council had originally added gay rights protection to its ordinance, this decision was challenged by conservatives, making the vote necessary. The measure won 7,671 to 4,731.
Posted by: Harris | November 4, 2009 11:05 AM