Page 2, High GEAR

Whitmore by a landslide

Major victory for gays in Houston mayoral race

On November 17 in Houston, Texas, in what is widely seen as a major gay political victory, Katharine J. Whitmore won the run-off election for Mayor of Houston.

Whitmore, a 35-year old public accountant and two term city controller, won by a landslide over her opponent Sheriff Jack Heard despite last minute attempts by her opponent's supporters to generate an anti-gay backlash.

Whitmore was endorsed and prominently and vigorously supported by Houston's Gay Political Caucus (GPC), a group which has recently gained nationwide attention as one of the best organized and most powerful gay political action groups in the United States.

Whitmore won over Heard by 170,772 votes to 102,385 votes, 62.6% to 37.4%, despite such tactics as a last minute Mialgram being sent to thousands of voters claiming that Whitmore's campaign had been. "orchestrated by San Francisco homosexuals."

Referring to the Mailgram during her victory speech on election night, Whitmore said that she believed Houstonians could see through that type of smear tactic.

She asked her supporters to direct their energies to the "single purpose of creating a better quality of life for every citizen.'

In the news story describing Whitmore's victory which appears on the front page of the November 18 issue of The Houston Post beneath a banner headline which says "Whit-

more by Landslide" reporter Tom Kennedy notes that Lee Harrington, president of the GPC, was among supporters at Whitmore's victory celebration. He quotes him as saying, "This is our finest hour. Today Houston voters have elected to the city's highest office a person. who publicly takes a stand that no citizens will be denied their basic rights. This is all the gay community has ever demanded.

Also appearing on the front page of the November 18 issue of The Houston Post is a news analysis by Post reporter Juan R. Palomo beneath a headline which reads "Voters turned off by scare tactics."

Says Palomo, "The voters delivered a strong message to hard-line conservatives who

would have them believe that the election of any liberal or moderate will turn Houston into a San Francisco after it has somehow annexed Sodom and Gomorrah."

Noting that Whitmore campaigned on her experience and good management practices while controller, Palomo comments, "Houston voters made it clear that 'sound, businesslike management' is what really concerns them."

The last minute attacks from Whitmore's detractors seem to have backfired, says Palomo.

Judging from results that came in from across the city that strategy probably brought out the extra voters everywhere

Gay voter

(Continued from the previous page)

Except for coverage of Lakewood City Council activities in the Lakewood Sun Post and Brockman's own campaign literature, the Cleveland Magazine article seems to have been the only printed publicity Brockman got in the final weeks before the election.

It was certainly the most talked about publicity Brockman got-and without a doubt the most laughed over.

John P. Gallagher, then 29, a soft-spoken probation officer in the county juvenile court system, who lives on Clifton Avenue, had little more to do with gay votes in his ward than seem like an alternative to. Brockman.

Gallagher won by 271 votes. It does not seem terribly far-fetched to assume that a few hundred gay voters living in the lower end of Lakewood might possibly have concluded that Brockman was neither very sympathetic nor very observent.

The moral

These three local political tales all have the same moral: In most elections the difference. between winning and losing amounts to a small percentage of the final vote, usually less than 10%, and a minority group with alert members can easily swing most elections one way or another.

For those who bother to pay attention, the most useful closet is the voting booth.

that put Whitmore over the top early in the evening.

"And for Houston, the election results showed that the trend towards electing moderates to head the city that began with the ascension of Fred Hofheinz in 1973 will continue if those moderate candidates can put together a coalition of blacks, Hispanics, gays and liberals and moderate whites."

Palomo notes that despite claiming they had nothing to do with the mudslinging during the final weeks of the campaign, Heard and his campaign staff did little to curb the activities of a "vocal minority" of "overzealous" Heard supporters "doing

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everything in their power to convert the campaign into a right vs. evil race instead of a contest between two candidates who each claimed they could best manage the city."

The actions of Heard's vocal minority, says Palomo, "turned off even voters in the more traditionally conservative areas."

Normal = Gay

According to a recent study by an American Psychological Association division, being gay is healthy and biologically normal as being heterosexual.

GEAR'

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