The power of mayors: Republican or Democrat, man or woman, gay mayors are making a difference at city halls across the nation
Frankie Edozien

In the thick of the 2004 presidential campaign, Gina Genovese and her partner, Wendy McCahill, threw a fund-raising soiree for Democratic contender Howard Dean in their affluent and mostly Republican suburb of Long Hill Township, N.J. At the time Genovese, now 47, was just a successful businesswoman, out in her community and only indirectly involved in politics. A former pro tennis player–once ranked 150th in the world–she has owned Gina’s Tennis World in nearby Berkeley Heights for 23 years.
But that evening she was moved to do more. As Dean and her guests mingled in the high-ceilinged living room of her home atop a winding lane overlooking the surrounding woods, Genovese had an aha! moment.
It’s not enough for LGBT families to keep trying to help progressive politicians win elections, Genovese thought. “At some point we have to fight for our own rights,” she says. “It’s not fair to say to someone else, ‘Stick up for me.’”
So Genovese decided to run as a Democrat for a spot on the local township committee. And she didn’t try to hide her personal life. “Everyone knows us,” she says of herself and McCahill. “I have four or five hundred clients in the area, and I did a lot of fund-raising.”
By fall 2004 she’d won her seat, beating a four-time incumbent by just 10 votes in the town of 9,000, where there are few Democrats and even fewer gay people. Suddenly, she was being touted by the media as the first out LGBT person ever to be elected a mayor in the Garden State. Her crowning glory came January of this year, when the township committee selected her as mayor.
As to whether homophobia is an issue for her: Last year Genovese received flowers at her home and got numerous letters of support after dozens of leaflets, from an anonymous source, accusing her of sexual misconduct were circulated in May. Then in September an antigay sticker was placed on Genovese’s car; the culprit was found quickly and prosecuted. The townspeople might as well have said, “Don’t mess with our mayor.” “People realized this kind of thing doesn’t happen to straight people,” she says.
It validated what she believed all along: that LGBT people must seize control of their own destiny politically, especially at the local level. We need to get involved, Genovese says, or risk being continually marginalized. “I think it’s so important,” she says. “I know there are a lot of people that might never have known they were talking to a gay person.”
As openly gay state and federal lawmakers grab the headlines in the fight for gay equality, a quiet revolution has been taking place at the local level. From Utah to Florida, Massachusetts to California, openly gay mayors are increasingly visible. Some are getting elected as out candidates, while others–like California mayors Christopher Cabaldon of West Sacramento and Stephen Padilla of Chula Vista–have recently found the courage to come out while in office. To date, 22 municipalities have gays at the helm, three of whom are women.
This increased gay presence at the mayoral level was bound to happen, says Scott Widmeyer, a board member for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based group that raises money for select openly gay candidates. “As we get more people elected, we see it spread out and all of that bubbles up,” Widmeyer says.
Perhaps no current U.S. officeholder has done more to raise the profile of gay mayors than David Cicilline, a dashing criminal defense attorney who was elected mayor of Providence, R.I., in 2002. Today, the 44-year-old bachelor, a Brown University graduate, is the only openly gay mayor of a state capital.
Providence, with an estimated population of 178,000, “is really a city-state,” says Cicilline, who had been an out state lawmaker when he beat three contenders in the primary to be the city’s mayor, then later won the race with a mandate–84% of the vote–to bring change to the city’s corrupt government. For Providence voters, Cicilline’s competency outweighed any issues surrounding his sexual orientation.
Cicilline, whose predecessor, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr., left a scandal-plagued bureaucracy with a $59 million deficit when he was jailed on corruption charges, has cleaned house since taking office four years ago. He’s fired tainted workers, settled stalled labor contract negotiations, ended the secret taping of phone conversations at municipal buildings, and restored integrity and a sense of trust to his city. And “crime is down,” Cicilline points out. Even Hollywood has come calling, as the mayor works overtime to put the renaissance back in the Renaissance City. “CBS just shot a pilot [here] called Waterfront,” Cicilline says.
Once Cicilline was sworn in, Providence’s “old boys’ network” was shattered. Women and minorities were added to the employment mix. “Government should be representative of the people it serves,” says Cicilline. Indeed, his swearing-in ceremony was attended by a diverse crowd, including Roberto Salcedo, mayor of the Dominican Republic’s capital city of Santo Domingo, a nod to the city’s large Dominican population.
Cicilline has done a lot to break down barriers in Providence, something Palm Springs, Calif., mayor Ron Oden is proud to have done in his own city. In 2003, after being an out councilman since 1995, Oden headed to City Hall as the nation’s first gay black man to be elected mayor by popular vote.
In a town of roughly 46,000, only 4% of whom are black but at least 30% of whom are gay, Oden’s victory wasn’t attributable to any one group. Palm Springs simply chose the best candidate for the job. The 56-year-old grandfather stepped forward to take the helm partly because there was a move to curtail–or worse, eliminate–the annual gay White Party and popular biker weekends. “I ran for mayor because I saw a very clear agenda that I didn’t believe was progressive,” Oden says. “I felt that they were unnecessarily targeting the gay community.”
Oden points out that those gatherings, along with the annual Dinah Shore Weekend lesbian events, pump at least $3 million per year into the local coffers. Big business supports him because of his economic development sensibilities. “I wanted to revamp our planning department. I also knew that we needed to really create an atmosphere that is business-friendly. We now have a Hard Rock [Cafe] coming in; we have a W [Hotel] coming in; the Hyatt is doing a $40 million renovation,” Oden says.
Even though he had nearly a decade’s experience in government, Oden says people were still skeptical of his agenda, so he promised to serve only one term. During his time in office the city’s big gay events have thrived, but so has Palm Springs itself.
Being an out gay mayor has been rewarding, Oden says, but he’s keeping his promise to leave the job; in March he announced his candidacy for the California assembly. “I believe the only way you develop new leadership is when people get out of the way,” he says.
Like Oden, Cicilline, and Genovese, Mike Gin, 43, also was completely out when he ran for mayor of Redondo Beach, Calif., last summer. Gin, a Chinese-American, is now the first minority mayor in that city since its incorporation in 1892.
But unlike his contemporaries, Gin, a Republican, had to endure a smear campaign from within his own party: A mailer sent by a conservative group in the final weeks of his campaign attacked Gin for accepting contributions from “national liberal gay rights groups.” “It was meant to be a negative, but it backfired,” says Gin, who’s been with his partner, Christopher Kreidel, for 11 years. His relationships in the community helped, as he served on the city council from 1995 to 2003. Like Oden, Gin put a high priority on economic development, but he is proud to help advance the cause of equality from within the GOP. “We need to be able to reach out to both sides of the aisle, not just work with one side,” Gin says.
And that’s something that can be done well from the mayor’s office, Gin adds. “You have the ability to see changes really take place in a timely fashion,” he says. “This level of government is pretty rewarding.”
Edozien is a journalist based in New York City.
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