Del R Elects Openly Gay Mayor – Texas Monthly

Contents:

• DEL R ELECTS OPENLY GAY MAYOR
• TEXAS BORRTOWN ELECTS OPENLY GAY MAYOR WH A PENCHANT FOR HIGH HEELS AND GOVERNMENT ACUNTABILY
• SMALL TOWN TEXAS ELECTS GAY MAYOR
• HOTON ELECTS ITS FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR
• HOTON ELECTS FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR
• ANNISE PARKER: OPENLY GAY MAYOR ELECTED IN HOTON, TEXAS
• TEXAS GOP'S NEW PLATFORM LLS GAY PEOPLE 'ABNORMAL' AND REJECTS TRANS INTI
• VOTERS DEL R, TEXAS ELECT GAY MAYOR
• HOTON’S FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR ON HOW THE CY BEME ONE OF AMERI’S MOST DIVERSE: SEASON 2, EPISO 1 OF 'LET’S GO TOGETHER'
• WHAT HOTON'S GAY MAYOR MEANS FOR TEXAS
• TEXAS TOWN ELECTS GAY AIR FORCE VETERAN KNOWN FOR WEARG HIGH HEELS
• GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

DEL R ELECTS OPENLY GAY MAYOR

The South Texas town of Del R, populatn 35, 998, elected s first openly gay officeholr on Saturday when Bno Lozano won the mayoral race.

Acrdg to Hoton’s OutSmart Magaze, as of January there were at least 52 LGBT ndidat across the state, chasg everythg om small-town mayor gigs to state reprentative seats to the ernor’s had bee well known Del R for his work to clean up the borr town’s waterways, acrdg to Into, an onle magaze produced by the gay onle datg app Grdr, and he cid to n for mayor 2016. Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valz, who is openly gay, announced her tentn to n for ernor early January and has long been nsired the ont-nner to challenge Governor Greg Abbott November.

One of Valz’s fellow Democratic gubernatorial ndidat was Jefey Payne, an openly gay owner of a gay bar Dallas. He’s an openly gay Air Force veteran who prevly marched the cy’s Veteran’s Day para high heels.

TEXAS BORRTOWN ELECTS OPENLY GAY MAYOR WH A PENCHANT FOR HIGH HEELS AND GOVERNMENT ACUNTABILY

The newly elected gay Texas mayor won 62% of the vote, beatg out his cumbent opponent, and — surprisgly — his sexual orientatn only me up once ( a nasty Facebook post) durg the mpaign.

Here is the mpaign ad of gay Texas mayor Bno Lozano:. What do you thk of newly elected gay Texas mayor Bno Lozano? A small, unassumg borr town Texas jt elected a gay mayor, and he’s not here to ver his inty.

Lozano is the first openly gay mayor to be elected, and he’s also the youngt. She is the first openly gay person elected to ern a cy wh a populatn of over 1, 000, 000 rints. In 1986, Parker served as a print of Hoton’s LGBT Polil Cc, and 1997 Parker won the n-off electn for Hoton Cy Council, th beg Hoton’s first openly gay elected official.

SMALL TOWN TEXAS ELECTS GAY MAYOR

Cy Parker, who served five years as cy ntroller, won wh nearly 54 percent of vote Conservativ, anti-gay activists had lnched tense mpaign agast Parker Hoton, Texas (CNN) -- Annise Parker ma history Saturday as Hoton's first openly gay mayor. Other ci such as Province, Rho Island, and Portland, Oregon, have picked openly gay mayors. Also, the cy ss a state where gay marriage is agast the law.

HOTON ELECTS ITS FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR

"I have always stood up for the fact that I am gay.

After the mayoral race entered a noff, nservativ and anti-gay activists mounted an tense mpaign agast Parker.

Hoton rints received flyers the mail that highlighted Parker's support om gay groups and her relatnship wh her partner. The Pri of Del RUned StatDocumentary10 MsThis May, Bno “Ralphy” Lozano beme not only the youngt-ever mayor of Del R, Texas, but also the cy’s first openly gay elected official.

HOTON ELECTS FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR

In this short documentary, meet the groundbreakg polician whose landsli victory over a middle-aged cumbent meant this borr town of 36, 000 elected an openly gay mayor before San Francis or New York did. Annise Parker has an unbeatable lead over Gene Locke Hoton's hotly ntted mayoral electn, meang she will bee the cy's first openly gay Harris County electns Web se says 53. 62 percent of voters who turned out Saturday chose rival, former cy attorney Gene Locke, was pchg to bee the cy's send black electn battle leadg up to Saturday's ballotg was marked by fierce mpaigng and anti-gay rhetoric.

ANNISE PARKER: OPENLY GAY MAYOR ELECTED IN HOTON, TEXAS

Cy to ever have an openly gay Gay & Lbian Victory Fund put out a prs release llg this "a watershed moment Amerin polics. --Hoton, Texas has bee the largt cy the Uned Stat to elect an openly gay mayor after Cy Controller Annise Parker was clared the wner of a noff electn tonight. But Parker's endorsements om labor, police, women's, gay rights and other groups were echoed by the Hoton Chronicle, the area's major daily newspaper, and her mpaign ran a superr get-out-the-vote Wolfe, print and CEO of the Gay & Lbian Victory Fund, which endorsed Parker, said her victory holds tremendo signifince for the gay muny.

TEXAS GOP'S NEW PLATFORM LLS GAY PEOPLE 'ABNORMAL' AND REJECTS TRANS INTI

This victory sends a clear signal that gays and lbians are an tegral part of Amerin civic life, that we're willg to lead, and that voters will rpond to ndidat who are open and hont about their liv, " Wolfe praised the support of the Victory Fund and s donors, who raised hundreds of thoands of dollars to help fund her mpaign. Tonight Hotonians said y to a future like that, and I am glad the Victory Fund helped make that happen, " Parker 's electn was the Victory Fund's top polil prry 2009, a year that saw 54 of s 79 endorsed openly gay, lbian bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) ndidat elected to public office. The Texas Republin Party unveiled s official posn on LGBTQ issu over the weekend, fg homosexualy as an "abnormal liftyle choice" and also opposg "all efforts to validate transgenr inty.

"Thoands of Republin activists met at the party’s biennial nventn Hoton on Saturday to agree to the party's platform on a range of issu, cludg the rejectn of the 2020 electn rults and a ll to repeal of the 1965 Votg Right Act, which was enacted to prevent discrimatn agast Black a sectn tled "Homosexualy and genr issu, " the party suggted that LGBTQ people should not be legally protected om discrimatn and that beg gay or trans is a choice.

"Homosexualy is an abnormal liftyle choice, " the 40-page rolutn reads.

VOTERS DEL R, TEXAS ELECT GAY MAYOR

"We believe there should be no grantg of special legal entlements or creatn of special stat for homosexual behavr, regardls of state of orig, and we oppose any crimal or civil penalti agast those who oppose homosexualy out of fah, nvictn, or belief tradnal valu. "The Texas Republin Party blocked the Log Cab Republins, a longstandg group of gay nservativ — which also supports many of the party’s anti-LGBTQ polici — om havg a booth at Saturday's nventn.

"The party's new official stance on sexual orientatn and genr inty also cis wh a recent natnwi surge charged rhetoric om media punds and policians about LGBTQ recent months, nservative lawmakers, televisn punds and other public figur have acced opponents of a newly enacted Florida tn legislatn — which crics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law — of tryg to “groom” or “doctrate” children. The word “groomg” has long been associated wh mischaracterizg LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgenr women, as child sex abers. The Cy of Del R, Texas, elected a gay man as mayor durg s May 5 municipal electn acrdg to unofficial rults published by the Del R News-Herald on May 6.

In the show, Mayor Parker shar her experience Hoton, and specifilly her history as an activist and member of s queer muny, eventually servg the cy as s first openly gay mayor. Annise: Oddly enough, we went om a vacuum where there was nothg right around the time we opened klgs to other bookstor focg on the muny, one Crossroads market, which was a sort of more of a general tert gifts and books, and then Loba books, which was targeted gay men and had eroti and so forth.

HOTON’S FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR ON HOW THE CY BEME ONE OF AMERI’S MOST DIVERSE: SEASON 2, EPISO 1 OF 'LET’S GO TOGETHER'

Kellee: What experienc led you to ci to n for public office and what gave you the nfince your muny to put yourself out there and bee the first elected openly gay mayor of a major U.

Gay and lbian, everythg, and then, you know, you get olr, you buy a hoe, you start thkg about other thgs.

Beg the youngt mayor elected the history of his town, Lozano has prevly worked as a flight attendant, served the armed forc, and is gay. We don’t have a gayborhood.

WHAT HOTON'S GAY MAYOR MEANS FOR TEXAS

A part of me is gay. When you thk of Texas, homosexualy seems like a taboo society, even though is allowed by the law.

Beg gay is a big advantage for his town and for himself, he says. After feats on gay marriage plac emed far more gay-iendly than Texas, like Mae and New York, the victory of Annise Parker, who is a mted relatnship wh two children, was a wele, if puzzlg, achievement for advot of gay rights. Gay-rights activists were buoyed.

TEXAS TOWN ELECTS GAY AIR FORCE VETERAN KNOWN FOR WEARG HIGH HEELS

"The fact that an openly gay ndidate ws for mayor the natn's fourth largt cy, the South, Texas, shows that when Amerins get to know gay people as people, not as stereotyp, their ristance to treatg gay people equally rc, " Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry, a gay-marriage advocy group, told USA Today.

Candidat endorsed by Log Cab Republins, a GOP gay-rights lobby, have e unr fire om noted anti-gay mpaigners, cludg Hoton physician Steven Hotze, whose polil actn mtee sent out a last-mute anti-Parker flyer. Hotze is also reported to have prsured statewi Republin judicial ndidat to back away om endorsements om gay groups or face primary opposn. Like Whmire, Parker ed the job of cy ntroller as a jumpg-off pot, built on her base the Montrose neighborhood (heart of the cy's large gay muny) and reached out to val nstuenci, like Ain Amerins, Hispanics, Asian Amerins and morate, affluent Republins.

GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

The late revelatn that two members of his fance mtee had supported Hotze's anti-gay PAC did not help Locke wh morate Republin voters, who saw the issue as not central to the vote. As for Parker's beg gay, Murray explas that Hoton's voters "are not that ught up 'liftyle' polics...

Todd Hill, a gay Democratic activist the Dallas–Fort Worth area, says Parker's w do have a wir meang. But I do believe that her electn giv momentum toward qualified, experienced and polilly savvy gay ndidat nng for public office, " he wrote on the polil blog Burnt Orange.