Posted on 06/23/2002 7:03:20 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
NEW YORK (June 23, 2002 2:12 p.m. EDT) - Tell, even before you're asked. And once you tell, brace for hard questions. That's the advice gay candidates are getting in this election year as activists try to add to the numbers of openly gay elected officials.
While their ranks have quadrupled in the past decade, out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians represent only 218 of the roughly 511,000 Americans in elective office - less than 0.05 percent. Three serve in Congress, 47 are state legislators, the rest are local officials, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the largest organization that recruits homosexuals to run for office.
The fund is inviting gay candidates to a four-day workshop next month in Washington. Among the key lessons awaiting them: Be ready for tough questions, and reach out vigorously to non-gay voters.
"You'd be hard pressed to find any voting district with a gay majority," Victory Fund spokesman Jason Young said. "You can never win on that issue alone."
Ed Murray of Seattle, a Democratic state representatives since 1995, is among the grateful alumni of previous workshops.
"The most useful part was the tough reality check they put us through, to be sure we could do it - the personal qualifications, the fund-raising," said Murray, now Washington state's longest-serving openly gay official.
In Georgia, Karla Drenner is completing a pioneering first term in the state House of Representatives. A white Democrat representing a mostly black district near Atlanta, she is first openly gay state legislator in the Southeast.
Though she still detects some hostility at the Statehouse, her initial sense of isolation has eased to the point where she is welcomed into lawmakers' pickup basketball games.
"Even the Republicans will joke with me," she said in a telephone interview.
A self-described moderate, Drenner occasionally casts votes that dismay her more liberal Democratic colleagues. She has fought bills she considered anti-gay, but has no illusions about pushing ambitious gay-rights legislation.
"The gay elite in Georgia would perhaps not consider me as strong an activist as they would like," she said. "But I don't have the seniority or colleague support to push an agenda like that. You lose political capital if you do that when you know it will fail."
The Victory Fund will contribute funds to viable, openly gay candidates of any party, provided they support gay rights. Candidates do not have to endorse all major goals of gay activists, such as legalized gay marriage, Young said.
Decisions can be difficult, particularly when an inexperienced gay candidate challenges a straight incumbent with a strong record supporting gay rights.
In a Chicago-area congressional race this year, the Victory Fund has declined to endorse the gay, Democratic challenger to the straight, Republican incumbent - U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk - figuring the candidacy will fail. Another major gay-rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, has endorsed Kirk because of his voting record.
"Our focus is gaining clout, building strength in Congress," said Human Rights Campaign spokesman David Smith. "The Victory Fund mission is supporting openly gay candidates at every level. We have the same goals, but we're getting there through different routes."
Northeastern and West Coast states have been the most open to gay candidates, while few have succeeded in the South and Great Plains. Wherever they run, they should be candid from the outset about their sexual orientation, Young said.
"As soon as you do that, the voting public believes a level of trust has been established," Young said. "You can say that your honesty on this issue is symbolic of your honesty on a whole host of issues."
Even in the staunchly liberal Upper West Side of Manhattan, running as a gay candidate is a challenge, said Daniel O'Donnell. The brother of talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, he is the front-runner in a State Assembly race that could make him the first openly gay man in New York's Legislature.
"As a general rule, people in New York City are very tolerant," O'Donnell said. "But I've had people at street fairs come up and tell me, 'I have a real problem with you being gay.'"
Among the gays waging their first campaign this year is Rick Musiol, who hopes to be elected state representative from a middle-of-the-road district where Cape Cod branches out from the rest of Massachusetts.
Musiol's parents were longtime officials in their hometown of Bourne, and he spent nearly five years in Boston as a state senator's aide.
"It's tough, putting your life out there for public scrutiny," Musiol said. "Try being a 27-year-old gay man talking to a cranberry grower whose family has worked the bogs for generations. It's intimidating at times."
Though he has welcomed endorsement by the Victory Fund, he doesn't intend to make his sexual orientation a campaign issue.
"I wonder who knows and who doesn't," Musiol said. "I don't shout it from the rooftops. That's not the type of person I am."
But if his homosexuality is raised by others, "Fine, bring it on. I have a lot to be proud of.
"What people want most is someone who's going to work hard on their behalf, whether you're black, white, gay, straight," he said. "They want someone who's going to be there for them."
when homo-sexuals had the good taste to be ashamed of themselves?
I give you notice right now...
I am going to steal that joke!!
Aside from that I really don't care about the "sexually-confused!!"
I'm no scientist, but as fun as sex is,...
as I understand it, sex is meant for the propagation of the species...
as I further under stand it, "Gays" can't do that!!
I guess that is why they are mad to recruit now!!
Comparing behavior to innate condition is a coping mechanism and disordered.
That is one sick family.
I just had the thought that it was "Gays" that invented doors and shades...
I mean all the "normal" cave-men and cave-women wouldn't have been ashamed!!
They were working to expand the power of the group...
it's only the 'deviants' that had to hide!!
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