LGBT leaders in public office no longer rare, but still needed

In 1987, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., publicly announced he was gay. It was a media bombshell. But to the surprise of many, it had little effect on his career.

He easily won re-election in Massachusetts the next year with 70 percent of the vote and served in the House of Representatives until he retired in 2013. If you wanted to trace the public acceptance of the LGBT community in America, you could do worse than track Frank’s career.

“It reached the point where being gay was more socially acceptable than being a politician,” he said this week. “When I got married (to longtime partner Jim Ready in 2012), my marriage polled better than the financial reform package.”

Being a gay politician isn’t remarkable anymore, especially in San Francisco. Yet we should take note of this: If Supervisor Scott Wiener loses this year’s election for state Senate against Supervisor Jane Kim, it will be the first time since 1996 that San Francisco hasn’t elected at least one LGBT representative to the state Legislature. Mark Leno, who is gay, now holds the seat but is termed out.

Frank is in town Thursday to support Wiener’s campaign. He’s sort of the gay version of Kim supporter Bernie Sanders. For Wiener, having Frank’s support is especially meaningful.

“I’ve been following him since I was a teenager,” Wiener said. “After Harvey Milk, he was the leading LGBT figure on the national stage. He was a gay man in public office at a time when it was a heckuva lot harder than it is today. As a young, gay man, that was significant to me.”

Smart, witty and fearlessly blunt, Frank was also a reply to the tired gay cliches.

“When you’re a gay man, you get stereotyped as not being strong enough,” Wiener said. “You get sexualized. Barney Frank was no backbencher. He was a big, big deal in Congress.”

Frank’s theory is that when more and more men and women announced their sexual orientation, it changed the conversation.

“When no one was coming out, there was no way to refute these terrible stereotypes,” Frank said. “When people started coming out, it was a case of reality beating prejudice.”

Significantly, Frank didn’t make his mark by crusading for gay issues.

“In the ’70s in the (Massachusetts) Legislature, I introduced gay-rights legislation,” Frank said. “And it didn’t take long to get defeated. You brought it up and it lost. I might as well have tried to pass legislation allowing me to levitate.”

So when he reached the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he recognized that he couldn’t be a one-issue politician.

“If you only wanted to do LGBT issues, you wouldn’t be working much,” he said.

Frank eventually became chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, and with Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd crafted the landmark Dodd-Frank legislation, which imposed financial regulation on federal agencies.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, a movement was under way. The election of Milk in 1977 to the Board of Supervisors started an unbroken line of nearly 40 years with at least one gay or lesbian representative on the board.

Of course, if Wiener wins, Mayor Ed Lee will appoint another LGBT supervisor to fill the seat, and the line will continue. If Wiener loses, he’ll finish his term and leave office after the 2018 election, and it’s almost certain that a gay candidate will win the LGBT-heavy District Eight race.

But with widespread acceptance of LGBT individuals, it’s a new day in American politics. San Francisco may have been ahead of the curve, but it’s interesting to think that this election may leave the city with the fewest LGBT representatives in years.

There have been two gay or lesbian members on the Board of Supervisors since 2000. But gay Supervisor David Campos is termed out this year, and both candidates for his job are straight.

Have we reached the point where alternative sexuality is so commonplace that it isn’t necessary to elect a gay representative? Frank doesn’t think so.

“Having people who are openly gay or lesbian is essential,” he said. “Being represented gives you a seat at the table.”

Which is what makes the Wiener-Kim race significant.