Mayor Bloomberg has, acrdg to the Post, hired Brian Ellner, failed ndidate for Manhattan borough print, as his reelectn mpaign's token homosexual. You remember Brian, right? His mpaign revolved around a) not beg Gee Bh, and b) beg, stead, the gayt gay gaytown. And he created the only memorable mercial of the mpaign: "I'm Brian Ellner and this is my partner, Simon," he says, as he pulls Simon to the ame long enough to hammer home that whole gay thg, but not long enough for Simon to, you know, say anythg. And as liaison to the gay muny for Mayor Bloomberg, Ellner himself n now expect siar treatment.
Contents:
VOTG IS GAY!
GLAAD, the world’s largt lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocy anizatn, is releasg the fdgs of the first of an ongog seri of polls to gge and track motivatn, enthiasm, and issu ahead of the 2022 midterm electns takg place November. The poll measur how motivated LGBTQ likely voters are * voting is gay *
GLAAD, the world’s largt lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocy anizatn, is releasg the fdgs of the first of an ongog seri of polls to gge and track motivatn, enthiasm, and issu ahead of the 2022 midterm electns takg place November. Nearly 180 bills have been proposed 2022, most (97) targetg transgenr people and youth, wh a new foc on anti-LGBTQ school policy bills (69) that ban classroom nversatn and books about LGBTQ people unr the guise of “parents’ rights, ” like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
A gay pri and an Amerin flag hang om a shoulr bag durg a monstratn outsi of the Phillip Burton Feral Buildg 2011 San Francis, Cal. That’s what I told our meraman last month when he filmed the gay pri flag-raisg ceremony at San Francis Cy Hall.
But gay polil activism was rarely the news there, and I n’t image any mayor any Tennsee cy raisg a Pri flag over town hall; Nashville, spe s progrsivism, is still the Bible Belt (the ma gay strip Nashville is on Church Street). But every June here, the mayor and most other lol polil heavyweights attend the annual Alice Pri Breakfast, helpg raise money for one of the cy’s two major LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr) Democratic polil clubs.
HOW IMPORTANT IS THE GAY AND LBIAN VOTE FOR THE UPG ELECTN?
A gay pri and an Amerin flag hang om a shoulr bag durg a monstratn outsi of the Phillip Burton Feral Buildg 2011 San Francis, Cal. Photo by Jt Sullivan/ Getty Imag. "This didn't happen Nashville." That's what I told our meraman last month when he filmed the gay pri flag-raisg ceremony at San Francis Cy Hall. We were producg a PBS NewsHour segment on the polil reactn to Print Obama's cisn * voting is gay *
But is the gay polil scene San Francis still an exceptn, and will the gay vote Ameri really matter the printial electn?
The Obama mpaign seems to thk so: there’s an “Obama Pri” webse voted to the LGBT muny; first lady Michelle Obama recently held a nference ll wh gay activists enuragg them to hold “Pri” hoe parti; the mpaign has a staff dited to gettg out the LGBT vote; and the mpaign is raisg funds om this muny.
So I asked Patrick Egan, a profsor of polil science at New York Universy, and Kenh Sherrill, a profsor of polil science at Hunter College at the Cy Universy of New York: Do the gay vote really matter?
VOTG IS GAY
And why do the Obama mpaign fd important to reach out so meangfully to the gay muny this year? In 2008, Egan and Sherrill -thored a paper on LGBT civic engagement, fdg that gays and lbians tend to be more active civilly and polilly than other Amerins. Sherrill said the gay vote ma the marg of victory North Carola that year and said uld aga this November: “This is a group of reliable voters who turn out to vote more than most people do, who appear to be registered to vote more than most people are and who are one of the handful of most Democratic groups the electorate.
Egan, however, utned that the LGBT populatn is still jt a small percentage of the Amerin whole and said he didn’t thk the gay vote is “more important this electn” than ’s been the past. If the Democrats n get gay people to vote on the basis of which party is offerg more polici that promote gay rights, the choice is que clear. More: Corrallg the Gay and Lbian Vote.
Thanks to new marketg technologi, Egan said both parti, Republin and Democratic, are more often targetg segments of the populatn wh tailored mpaign msag: “Republins do that wh evangelil Christians, and Democrats do that wh gay voters and other nstuent groups. And acrdg to Sherrill, the gay muny may be particularly motivated to vote this fall: “Nobody else has the right to get married on the ballot. Gary Gat, a profsor at the Williams Instute at the UCLA School of Law — which foc on sexual orientatn and genr inty law and public policy — said that polis may have cid that gay issu have bee signifint enough for the general populatn that polil mpaigns feel they are worth fightg for.