Pride & Opinions

No, this isn’t some joke. Thank gods it’s not some joke. And if the Dallas election goes well, it could actually happen.

Dallas Could Elect Its First Gay Mayor - ABC News

This conservative metropolis could become the nation’s largest city to elect an openly gay mayor if a longtime city council member wins a runoff election later this month.

Ed Oakley’s candidacy is the latest indication that Dallas’ reputation as a conservative stronghold is giving way to more diversity. The city is already home to several gay elected officials, including the sheriff.

I am going to stomp on every last one of my pessimistic, cynical tendencies to hope that Oakley wins.

I think you’d have to live in Texas to understand why this is such a monumental step. Then again, I’m sure the reputation of Georgie W.’s home state precedes itself. Despite being home to several large cities and primary centers of industry, a thinning majority of the state is still wildly intolerant of homosexuality. There’s a general assumption in many places that urban development encourages progressive thought and expansion of values to accept diversity.

In Texas, that’s rarely true.

Of course, the growing minority of those who are accepting tends to be open-minded, understanding, and quite casually comfortable with those from all walks of life. And don’t get me wrong: for every jerk who flings homophobic slurs at your back, there’s another kind soul who’ll stand by your side to offer a shoulder to lean on in those moments in which support is most needed. But it doesn’t change the fact that Texas is very much a red state.

And red states tend not to deal well with gays.

“Dallas is less and less the Dallas that people think it is,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “And Dallas is less and less the Dallas that it used to be.”

Dallas is, admittedly, becoming more cosmopolitan than the standard of Texas cities, and I’m not surprised that this issue has found a home there first. Texas needs this - a major city, a conservative city, that at once accepts a man’s sexuality but at the same time ignores it in favor of what’s most important: his political stance. There are too many who would refuse to vote for him based on his open homosexuality alone, ignoring whether or not they’re in favor of policies that may well benefit them. If Oakley is voted into office, it will set a wonderful precedent and an example for the rest of Texas…the rest of the country.

Not that I think being gay makes him the perfect mayoral candidate; he is human, after all. He’ll have some bad, bad political ideas, some really good ones, and he’s going to botch things as often as he fixes them. Being gay doesn’t make a politician any less a politician, and it shouldn’t. But he would be a landmark, nonetheless, and his election would give me renewed hope in the turning of the tides in the conflict over sexuality in this nation.

As long as he doesn’t end up in jail over some indiscretion or another. Texas hasn’t quite caught up with California, and doesn’t allow conjugal visits for gay and lesbian inmates.

ed oakley, dallas, texas, gay elected officials, gay mayor, politics