For gay Democrats, the heterosexual mayor of San Francisco has unsettling advice. If you want the Democratic Party to really hear you, snap your checkbooks closed: "Don't let a politician come in and take your money and then abandon core principles of equal rights."
S.F. mayor: Gay marriage gives Dems an edge
By Deb Price / The Detroit News
SAN FRANCISCO -- Mayor Gavin Newsom simply wanted to put a human face on the gay push for the right to marry. Outraged by President George W. Bush's call for writing anti-gay discrimination into the Constitution, the mayor decided to introduce the world to Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, a couple for 51 years, by allowing them to lawfully wed.
But, in February 2004, by throwing open the doors of his gorgeously ornate City Hall to them and thousands of other gay couples eager to exchange wedding vows, the exuberant young mayor had his own eyes opened -- and his life transformed.
Before a judge halted the weddings, a little girl gave Newsom a big hug outside his office and said, "Thank you for giving me two mommies." He recalls, "I didn't get it until that moment. I looked around and saw all the families. And I thought, 'This is so bigger much than I ever imagined. It is so much more important and profound.'"
How did having the courage to act on his conviction that gay Americans deserve equal rights change Newsom? "It has liberated me. I don't have to calculate. It is a wonderful thing to say publicly what I say privately. What a gift to be able to do the job with a sense of freedom," he says with a smile.
And now, as he and allies push the California Legislature and courts to end marriage discrimination, he yearns to liberate other elected officials in his Democratic Party. He continually hears Democratic "leaders" privately whisper that they support gay marriage, then sees them try to duck the issue -- and him -- in public. And he watches them stuff their pockets with gay checks, then fail to stand up for equality.
If the Democratic Party is very lucky, Gavin Newsom is the face of its future. He believes the way for it to end its losing streak isn't by rooting around in the W playbook for a second-hand strategy, but by rediscovering its own core principle -- advocacy of equal rights for all.
"The proudest moment in the Democratic Party's history was when we stood up on civil rights. The vast majority of the leadership of the Democratic Party supports gay marriage. My argument is, 'What is the point of winning if you can't do what is right?'"
A refreshing alternative to the cringing Democrats who quake at the very mention of gay marriage, Newsom hopes his party's soul searching leads it to the revelation that Republicans will never drop the topic, so it might as well show a little backbone.
For the Democratic Party, gay marriage is very much part of the solution to becoming the majority party again, he says. Republicans, he adds, have handed them a great opening by "telling us who we can marry and how we can die. These guys have made it so easy for the Democrats to say, 'We are going to stay out of your lives.'"
For gay Democrats, the heterosexual mayor of San Francisco has unsettling advice. If you want the Democratic Party to really hear you, snap your checkbooks closed: "Don't let a politician come in and take your money and then abandon core principles of equal rights." The gay Human Rights Campaign found that its members alone contributed more than $17 million to Democratic federal campaigns between Jan. 1, 2003 and June 30, 2004.
Gay rights groups have begun drawing important lines in the sand. The Human Rights Campaign last year refused to endorse any supporter of an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Equality California PAC refused to back anyone who did not declare they were at least open to supporting the freedom to marry.
And gay San Franciscans recently did themselves proud by handing Sen. Dianne Feinstein, their former mayor, the "Pink Brick," given to the public official who has done the most to harm gay folks. The Democrat claimed after last year's election that the decades-long gay push to protect our relationships by marrying "has been too much, too fast, too soon."
Equal rights can never come too soon. And that's Mayor Newsom's winning message for his party and his country.
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