Annise Parker was elected Mayor of Houston on Saturday, making the city the largest in the country to elect an openly gay person.
Yesterday she acknowledged the historic significance of her victory, saying, ""Clearly that has a lot of symbolic importance. I didn't run to be a symbolic mayor, I ran to be mayor of Houston, and my sexual orientation is part of who I am and part of how I presented myself to the voters."
Parker's victory came with some support from the Tampa Bay area.
Sally Phillips is the Chair of the Hillsborough County LGBTA Caucus. Over the course of the past few weeks, between 10-15 members of the group, as well as others phone banked for Parker, targeting early and election day voters. "We found that some of those called would not have have voted at all if they had not gotten the phone call," Phillips says. " So, we felt we were helping in a critical area."
In an e-mail exchange with CL yesterday, Phillips said she was extremely pleased with Parker's win, saying, "After so much depressing news lately regarding LGBT equality, it's nice to be able to smile this wide."
Some of that depressing news no doubt has been the setbacks for one of the biggest issues for the LGBT community in the past couple of years, same sex marriage. Though there was momentum building in 2008, those dreams came crashing down in California and in Florida a year ago, and just earlier this month in New York.
As to how significant Parker's victory is, the fact is that though there are more openly gay elected officials in the country than ever before (including Steve Kornell being elected to city council in St. Petersburg just last month), Houston is the country's fourth largest city, and thus the biggest with an openly elected gay leader.
(A friend of mine thought San Francisco would have been first, but that's not the case. Sure, Gavin Newsom ordered the city clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in early 2004, but as best as anybody can determine, he's pretty solidly heterosexual. Openly gay state legislator Tom Ammiano did run for Mayor in 1999, but lost badly to Willie Brown that year).
Sally Phillips with the Hillsborough County LGBTA Caucus says she's proud that the voters in Houston rejected the flurry of anti-gay remarks that marred the race in the last week and said she is proud of Parker and those who worked hard to see her get elected. " I believe this election has changed the world for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, but it's also transformed Houstonians’ lives for the better," she said. " Annise is a serious, smart and committed public servant who will service the citizens of Houston with honesty and integrity."
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2009.