Parker celebrates with her partner Photo: AP

History has been made…deep in the heart of Texas.  Where the doctrine of the conservative right usually reigns, a mold has been broken.  Houston, TX is the largest city in the United States to elect an openly gay mayor.  Annise Parker has done it – and she has not only proven herself worthy of the job, but has also proven that when it comes down to it, even a city in the conservative south is growing less and less concerned with a candidate’s gender and sexual orientation and more concerned with the issues.

The LGBT community is celebrating Parker’s win as hope for a more promising future.

“The fact that an openly gay candidate wins for mayor in the nation’s fourth largest city, in the South, in Texas, shows that when Americans get to know gay people as people, not as stereotypes, their resistance to treating gay people equally reduces,” Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry, a gay-marriage advocacy group, told USA Today.

All of those anti-gay campaign efforts in Houston led anti-gay activists and conservative religious groups failed to sway the opinion of the majority.  What is that old saying…oh yes, stick and stones may break my bones but…Annise Parker has won anyway!

Both Democratic candidates, it appears to be tough fight between the two — a neck and neck race to the finish pulling out all the stops.  Parker has been endorsed by the HRC and the Houston Chronicle, while Locke has been endorsed by the Houston Police Department.   

Parker’s run doesn’t come without controversy of course.  Keep in mind, this race is in Houston — not in Austin, our lovely open-minded bubble we are proud to call home.  Unfortunately, there are bigots out there like David Wilson who are pitted against Parker and using dirty tactics to make sure she does not win the majority vote.  For those unfamiliar, he is the man (and I use that word lightly) who crusaded to refuse benefits to partners of City of Houston LGBT employees.  The Houston Chronicle reported that Wilson sent out nearly 35,000 fliers to Houston residents depicting Parker and her partner alongside the message, “Is this the image Houston wants to portray?” The Chronicle also reported him as saying that “he is concerned that Parker, if elected, would become a gay and lesbian cultural icon and an inspiration to others to enter politics.”  Oh. My. Gosh.  God FORBID young gays and lesbians have dreams!  

Anyway, I’m not going to let a sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being like David Wilson have the last word in this article –so I will say to David:

Damn straight Parker is and will be an inspiration for LGBT people young and old, near and far.  And you know why?  Because she’s got class (something which you apparently lack), she’s got heart, and she’s not afraid to be who she is.  Here’s MY official endorsement for Annise Parker – a woman who is all of these things: A board member of the Holocaust Museum and Girls Inc., an advisory board member of the Houston Zoo, the Montrose Counseling Center and Trees for Houston.  And last but not certainly least, we can look up to Parker because she has been with her partner, Kathy Hubbard for nearly 20 years, and together they have adopted two children.  She is a family woman and she is a lesbian — Wow. I bet you thought you never hear those two classifications in the same sentence — did you, David?