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Noted . Notable . Noteworthy . LGBT News & Views
Volume 23 .Number 14 November 15.2008 Printed on Recycled Paper FREE
blue
q-notes.com
by Matt Comer. Q-Notes staff
What a new. Democratic North Carolina means for the LGBT community
resident Barack Obama. Governor
Beverly Perdue. Senator Kay Hagan.
What do all these names have in com
mon? For LGBT North Carolinians, one thing
is for sure: the slate of leaders elected by North
Carolina voters are among the most LGBT-
friendly candidates ever chosen to lead the
U.S. and the Tar Heel State.
“Tar Heel blue” takes on a new meaning
this year. It’s not just a color. It’s not just a
symbol for a state of mind or the nation’s old
est public university. For the first time since
Jimmy Carter’s 1976 election, the Republican
red Tar Heel State has turned back to its blue,
blue roots.
“I think it is really encouraging to see our
state voting for the most pro-equality presi
dent in the history of our country and to be
sending a great, state legislative ally to repre
sent us in the U.S. Senate,” says Ian Palmquist,
executive director of the statewide LGBT
advocacy group EqualityNC.“We have a new
governor and we’re really pleased that some of
the pro-equality legislative seats that were vul
nerable were able to hold on.”
EqualityNC endorsed a total of 59 candi
dates at local and state levels. According to
post-election results, 50 of those 59 were able
to hold onto their seats or get elected for the
first time.
Kay Hagan’s triumphant and resounding
victory over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen.
Elizabeth Dole is nothing short of a loud and
decisive judgment on Dole’s failed service to
her constituency. A full-time resident of
Washington, D.C., Dole’s preferred mode of
representation looked more like England’s idea
of representation for the colonials than a true
“servant of the people” model that’s supposed
to be indicative of American-style Democracy.
I’m sure dear old Jesse Helms is spinning
in his grave. From right inside the gates of
Hell, 1 can see the old man holding his first
post-mortem press conference.
“The Democrats and that godless Kay
Gobble-gobble
guilt free
Great holiday food
page 21
Hagan will ruin America,” he’d say. “Just like
Chapel Hill and that horrible, liberal zoo of a
college, Greensboro and Kay Hagan’s home
need to be fenced in!”
The backlash from Dole’s spineless TV ad
attacking Hagan’s “godlessness” was the least of
the Senator’s worries. Her lack of constituent
service (and the rudeness of it, according to
many of her “subjects”) coupled with her miser
able service as head of the National Republican
Senatorial Committee left her stranded. Support
withdrawn from the top down and loyalty
stripped from the hearts of her conservative
Republican voters. Dole was destined to lose.
Even my arch-conservative. Southern
Baptist family voted against Dole. “She don’t
serve us,” one of my aunts said before the elec
tion. “She’s too busy partying in Washington.”
Dole’s campaign was doomed from the
get-go. She could have saved herself bucket
loads of time and money. Instead, she chose
lies and deceit. Like many of her GOP col
leagues, she’d rather give into strong-arming
and stealing her way into elected office than
through a clean and civil campaign.
Dole’s underhanded campaign against
Hagan was a scene nowhere to be seen in the
Western Piedmont. Despite all odds — with
only three months of campaigning and little-
to-no campaign cash — openly gay Wade
Boyles managed to keep his race against
incumbent Republican N.C. House Rep. Dale
Folwell (74-Forsyth) focused on the issues.
Not once did Folwell use Boyles’ sexual orien
tation against him and hardly ever did it come
up among voters. Both candidates remained
friendly through the race.
Despite losing to him by a 56-41 percent
margin, Boyles extols the virtues of Folwell. He
said he wants to take the politician to dinner.
“I just don’t understand how such a nice man
can be for so many anti-gay things,” Boyles
says. “What’s the deal?”
The fact that Boyles lost his race isn’t a
surprise; the 74th N.C. House District is a con
Take that
mountain!
Head to Blowing Rock
page 24
servative. Republican-leaning one. The real
surprise is that an openly gay, virtually
unknown man with less than three months
campaign time was able to pull off a margin
as big as he did.
“I was very proud of the votes I received,”
he says. “When I started the campaign more
than 10 weeks ago, I said to my campaign
manager that I’d be happy if I just got 30 per
cent of the votes.”
There’s no doubt Boyles was just one of
many Democrats who got a down-ticket pick-
me-up from Obama’s successful. North
Carolina ground game. Obama won North
Carolina and with it came an influx of
Democratic support for candidates up and
down the ballot.
For the most part, the N.C. General
Assembly was able to hold on to its Democratic
majority. Only one seat went to the Republicans.
The moderate-leaning margin will serve as a
buffer against the Religious Right’s attempts
next session to bully their dominionist agenda
into the state’s constitution.
After their anti-gay marriage amendment
“victories” in Arizona, California and Florida
— as well as the passage of a gay adoption ban
in Arkansas — you can count on groups like
the Family Research Council, Focus on the
Family and the American Family Association to
pour their resources into vulnerable states like
ours. There’s even talk of a renewed ballot ini
tiative in Massachusetts, where marriage equal
ity has been the law of the land since 2003.
Five years in the running. North Carolina
remains the only Southern state without a
constitutional ban on gay marriage. We’re like
a huge, gaping hole in the Religious Right’s
map. Every Southern state has become the
victim of the Right’s aim on civil rights and
individual liberty, except for North Carolina.
A blue North Carolina means increased
organizing potential and untapped political
capital for ensuring the state’s continued suc
cess at keeping an amendment at bay.
Harnessing that energy won’t be easy, but it
will be key to keeping North Carolina’s consti
tution hate-free.
“I think it is really important to try to cap
ture and to continue to engage the volunteers
and donors who stepped up this year and who
haven’t been involved before,” says Palmquist.
“We’ll certainly be doing that this year.”
Last year, LGBT advocates missed their
chance at passing a statewide anti-bullying
bill by only one vote. Palmquist and
EqualityNC have placed the anti-bullying leg
islation at the top of their priority list.
Meanwhile, conservative religious forces
aligned with groups like the American Family
Association have already drawn up their post
election action plans. In a post on their web
site just days after the election, the Christian
Action League of North Carolina said they’d
work to defeat the safe schools bill and work
as hard as ever to push through their anti-gay
marriage amendment.
The heavy push-back from the Right will
make it more difficult for pro-equality advo
cates to make headway in Raleigh. Palmquist
sees hope in new progressive support from
voters who didn’t grow up in North Carolina.
“I think, overall. North Carolina is slowly
becoming a more moderate, more progressive
state,” Palmquist says. “A lot of that has to do
with how many people are moving here from
other places every year.”
LGBT North Carolinians will have to
count on these liberal and progressive new
comers if they hope to have any chance of
see We’re on 13
Inside
' Openly gay candidates win across U.S. page 7
' Anti-gay ballot initiatives pass in four states,
page 7
' Reader election reactions, page 4
’ Carolina’s openly gay candidates, page 11
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