Houston’s Road to Victory for Oddwads and Queers

Houston Mayor-elect Annise Parker
is the first openly gay activist to be elected mayor of a major US city.
Photo courtesy AnniseParker.com

By Larry Bush, guest columnist

December 20, 2009

Somewhere in Houston, a few lucky people are pulling out of their closets a T-shirt that reads “Oddwads and Queers.” In 1979, that’s how one Houston city council candidate described the coalition of supporters, including the Houston Gay Political Caucus, backing his opponent. Inevitably, the insult became a point of pride printed on T-shirts, particularly on the night the LGBT-backed candidate won.

I wonder how many will be worn as Houston now prepares to swear in its new mayor, Annise Parker, the first openly LGBT community activist to be elected mayor of a major American city.

In 1980, a year after Oddwads and Queers, Houston was on the map again. When the 1980 Democratic Party’s Platform Committee met in Washington to write its promises in the upcoming Presidential contest, open LGBT Democratic activists were on the Platform Committee for the first time. The first five arrived early, coming from New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then a sixth arrived on the opening day – a young Annise Parker of Houston, Texas.

We were wowed, and as a reporter covering the hoped-for historic pledge for civil rights, I was just as amazed as the delegates themselves. Coastal communities were one thing, but Houston, Texas sending an open lesbian to the Democratic Party’s Platform Committee? Parker did more listening than talking, but talked to the point, persuasively, when she did. As is her style, she wasn’t there to be important, but to make certain LGBT issues were treated with respect and importance. That year, twenty-nine years ago, the first-ever statement, although very mild by today’s standards, did make it into the platform and Parker was part of making history.

It hasn’t been a smooth journey since then, not anywhere, and certainly not in Houston, Texas. Later that same year, a Houston police officer shot to death Fred Paez, the LGBT ‘s community liaison to the police department. On the eve of the annual LGBT march and parade, a bullet was fired from a 44 Magnum to the back of Paez’ head while he was braced against a wall.

As the June parade began, black armbands were passed out to all the marchers, a silent scream of outrage demanding justice. A later police review blamed Paez’ death on the lack of training in firearms, and found no fault on the part of the officer.

Parker was there for that march, making certain that a shot fired in a darkened alley was seen and heard out in the open for the public. During that fall election, I walked through Houston’s gay bar district with Parker and others rallying folks to turn out the vote for the presidential election. Later returns showed that they carried those districts by large margins.

Today, almost three decades later, as the newly elected mayor in Houston, a city of 2.9 million people, Parker paid homage to what her candidacy represented for all those whose journey, like hers, began by fighting the politics of exclusion and prejudice. At the election victory party, Parker noted, “I know what this win means to many of us who thought we could never achieve high office. I know what it means. I understand, because I feel it, too.”

She then turned to what the future can be, saying, “from this moment, let us join as one community. We are united in one goal in making this city the city that it can be, should be, might be, will be.”

Parker’s victory was earned through years of public service, as a city council member and more recently as Houston’s controller. It was also earned by her close connection to the people who live and work in Houston, a candidate from the neighborhoods who understands budgets and what they have to provide.

Parker joins literally hundreds of elected LGBT officials, from the newly designated Speaker of the California State Assembly to a dozen city mayors in the United States (half in California) to mayors in Calvinist Zurich, Switzerland, Paris and Berlin. They are Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Socialists, downtown candidates and neighborhood candidates – black, brown, Asian, white, women and men.

They do not represent an alien “gay agenda” or a uniform view of what government should do. Ironically, their election hasn’t been an endorsement of gay marriage or even, as in Houston, equal benefits.

What voters are deciding is that they want the best leadership for their cities. They are unwilling to be denied the contribution and leadership their communities need because of a candidate’s sexual orientation. They will choose them if they believe they have the capacity to make the community better for everyone.

And in making those choices, they are writing American history that is more consistent with our traditional values than the recent election defeats around gay marriage would have us believe. Mayor-elect Annise Parker’s victory is the most recent, most important affirmation of a growing new definition of what “everyone” includes in our democracy. It’s not just Houston that benefits as a result. We all do. Including oddwads and queers.

Larry Bush is a former journalist and aide to Mayor Art Agnos who continues to work in the public sector, or some equally benign way.

FCJ Editor

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