Houston Mayor Calls Swearing-in Milestone for Gays
January 4, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
Houston Mayor Annise Parker said Monday her election to lead the nation’s fourth-largest city marked a milestone for gay Americans but was just “one step toward a tomorrow of greater justice.”
Parker was sworn in over the weekend in a private ceremony and repeated her oath during a public ceremony Monday. Her partner, Kathy Hubbard, held a Bible that belonged to Parker’s grandparents for the swearing-in by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore.
Parker took almost 54 percent of the vote in a runoff last month, defeating former city attorney Gene Locke in a race to succeed Bill White, who had reached his term limit. Her election made Houston the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor.
“I spoke on election night of that being an historic election, and my election made news all around the world,” she told the more than 1,000 people who gathered at the city’s Wortham Theater. “Now, Houstonians weren’t very surprised they elected a gay woman. We have a tradition of electing mayors not for who they are but for what they believe we can do as a city.”
Election Shows the Future Has Arrived in Houston
December 23, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
Early in her victory speech, Houston Mayor-elect Annise Parker addressed the pink elephant in the joy-throbbing room, the history she’d just made as an openly gay candidate for the top office in America’s fourth-largest city.
“All right,” Parker said on Dec. 12, as her partner of nearly 19 years beamed at her side, “let’s get this out of the way. Here’s the announcement that you’ve been waiting for: I am proud, very proud, to have been elected the first, the very first graduate of Rice University to be mayor of Houston.”
Her supporters burst into laughter and cheers at what was a textbook moment for other aspiring lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender candidates. A little humor does indeed go a long way. But in this case, the humor carried with it some Texas-sized truth about why Parker won: Voters appreciated her deep Texas roots.
Parker was born and raised in Houston, graduated from Rice, worked 20 years in the oil and gas industry, then began a political career — serving six years on the City Council, then five as city controller, where she was in charge of billions of tax dollars and oversaw Houston’s investments.
As her campaign website put it, Parker has “Houston Hometown Values.”
Houston, We Still Have a Problem
December 15, 2009 by James Hipps · Leave a Comment
The election of lesbian Annise Parker as mayor of Houston, similar to the election last year of African-American Barack Obama as president, was another mature moment of Americans judging individual people of color and homosexuals by the content of their politics. Not yet answered is whether America is ready to let such figures use their office to remediate the economic and education disparities and the civil rights gaps that still bedevil people of color and gay and lesbian people in general.
America is getting better at the individual level. The question is when will that translate into critical progress for the groups Parker and Obama come from.
Start with Parker. Houston became the largest yet in the United States to elect an openly gay mayor. Her sexual orientation meant less than her six prior citywide election victories for either city council or controller. The Houston Chronicle called her a grassroots “policy wonk’’ who “happened to be gay.’’
Houston Elects Openly Lesbian Mayor
December 13, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · 3 Comments
In what started out as a horse race, but ever slowly and steadily during the night, Houston City Controller, Annise Parker pulled out a win over her opponent Gene Locke, a former city hall attorney.
Parker becomes the first “out” mayor elected to the city hall of a major metropolitan city in the United States. Parker who never ran on the “gay card” instead ran a clean campaign based on her experience and what she hopes to do for the city and its citizens as mayor of Houston.
With 100% of the votes tallied at the time of this writing, Parker won 52.8% to 47.2% over Locke. Just after 10 PM (CT) Locke stood before his loyal supporters, thanked them, and gave his concession speech in which he called on all citizens of Houston for unity and to support the new mayor of Houston, the 50th mayor of that city.
Parker has been winning elections for 12 years, so while many across the United States have made an issue of Parker being “out”, it seems not to have been a problem up to and including this past November general election, where because of a close vote count, caused Saturday’s runoff election.
More at: Focus On The Rainbow!
The Failing of the Religious Right in Houston
December 13, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
This is really GREAT news, as the religious right has been largely successful in highjacking Christianity, promoting anti-gay sentiment in states trying to end marriage discrimination, reversing legislation by popular vote through referendums and doing it with tax exempt monies.
The religious right had 8 years of free reign over the American political landscape during the Bush regime, and as a child who has had candy taken away from them, has been screaming, doing nothing less than throwing a temper tantrum, since the election of Barack Obama.
Hopefully, this is a sign the times are changing. Hopefully this is an indication that the general public is no longer buying into to the hateful, anti-gay rhetoric that has made hundred of millions, perhaps billions of tax-exempt dollars for the leaders of the religious right…and this, in George W’s own conservative back yard.
The religious right once again thought a campaign of fear and bigotry would work. Tens of thousands of dollars funded attack mailer sent out to Houston voters. The same voters heard dark warnings about gays taking over their city’s government. Families and children, they were told, were in danger. It was, in short, a classic smear campaign designed to persuade voters that what mattered most when they entered the voting booth wasn’t what the candidates said about fiscal matters, transportation, city services and other issues typically important in a mayoral election. Oh no, they were told. What mattered most was the private life of one of the candidates and who she loved. What mattered most was that Annise Parker is gay, regardless of the fact that she was running on a record put together during a career that included six years on the City Council and six years as city controller.
But the religious right failed.
On Saturday a majority of voters rejected fear and bigotry, making Houston the nation’s largest city to elect an openly gay mayor. And in doing so they sent a strong message to the religious right: not in our city, not today, not anymore.
