When it comes to LGBT equality, Susan McGrath is willing to do whatever it takes.
Even if that means waiting outside a men’s room to speak to the mayor of St. Petersburg.
McGrath, the president of Stonewall Democrats and St. Pete Pride’s female grand marshal, is part of a group of LGBT leaders who were instrumental in getting Mayor Bill Foster to sign a proclamation about Pride this year. Their first successful contact occurred when Foster showed up, in a sense, on McGrath’s doorstep: he and the mayors of Clearwater and Tampa were speaking at a luncheon at Tampa’s Sheraton Downtown, where McGrath works as a banquet manager.
“I literally had to wait outside the men’s room in order to speak to him,” she says. “I said, ‘You know, Mayor, I’m a longtime resident of St. Petersburg. I’m grand marshal of St. Pete Pride. Could we come and talk to you about the proclamation?’”
Several unreturned phone calls later, McGrath again spoke to the mayor outside St. Pete City Council chambers after all eight members had signed their own Pride proclamation, sans the mayor. This time Foster told McGrath that yes, he could “sign something” — and the next day, June 19, he did, becoming the first mayor of St Petersburg to issue a formal proclamation recognizing LGBT pride.
A victory for St. Pete’s gay community, it was also a tribute to McGrath’s persistence and professionalism.
“It’s kind of fun, you know what I mean?” she says. “It’s kind of exciting to get people to move — that’s why we do this.”
Getting people to move in the direction of LGBT equality — or more to the point, getting them to vote for Democrats with good records on gay issues — is her mandate for Stonewall. Getting people to vote for her as grand marshal? Not so much. She says that when St. Pete Pride’s Eric Skains asked her to run, “I literally laughed out loud.” But it finally seemed to McGrath like a great way to get the Stonewall Democrats’ message out: “Change comes, but only when we’re all involved in the process.”
As examples of the value of electing gay-friendly candidates, she cites the election of Janet Long and Charlie Justice to Pinellas County Commission, which was followed almost immediately by passage of a domestic partnership registry. Stonewall Dems work hard to ensure such success, she told CL’s Mitch Perry in a recent interview.
“Once we endorse a candidate, we’re boots on the ground, we make phone calls, we put out slate lists, we do everything we can so that people have the information they need.”
Those same skills, she admits, had a lot to do with her election as grand marshal.
“Other nominees were equally if not more worthy than me,” she says, “but my organization is all about getting the vote out. We had an amazing team that made phone calls, did events on Facebook, all the things we had the system and structure to do.
“I’m 100 percent confident that’s why I’m the grand marshal.”
That — and not a little chutzpah.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2013.