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Houston just elected an openly gay mayor
Dec. 13th, 2009 02:14 amHouston just elected an openly gay mayor.
When I visited Houston in 2001, it seemed to me to be a time warp back to the 1960s in terms of race and gender roles.
It blows my mind that a gay mayor could be elected in a city that doesn't support domestic partner benefits. Maybe it's the force of personality that an individual politician can bring to bear that makes the difference. Perhaps some voters object to homosexuality as an abstract concept but can relate positively to Mrs Parker as an individual person. Of course this is silly cognitive dissonance, so perhaps over time these individual examples may start to help people overcome their abstract distaste for it.
Meanwhile, the most powerful person in Houston can't get her employer's healthcare to cover her wife.
Several smaller cities in other regions have chosen openly gay mayors, among them Providence, R.I., Portland, Ore., and Cambridge, Mass. But Ms. Parker’s success came in a conservative state where voters have outlawed gay marriage and a city where a referendum on granting benefits to same-sex partners of city employees was soundly defeated.
When I visited Houston in 2001, it seemed to me to be a time warp back to the 1960s in terms of race and gender roles.
It blows my mind that a gay mayor could be elected in a city that doesn't support domestic partner benefits. Maybe it's the force of personality that an individual politician can bring to bear that makes the difference. Perhaps some voters object to homosexuality as an abstract concept but can relate positively to Mrs Parker as an individual person. Of course this is silly cognitive dissonance, so perhaps over time these individual examples may start to help people overcome their abstract distaste for it.
Meanwhile, the most powerful person in Houston can't get her employer's healthcare to cover her wife.
