Three days ago, the city of Palm Springs in southern California became home to an elected city council that is comprised entirely of members of the LGBT community.
The country’s first all-LGBT city council will be sworn in Wednesday night at Palm Springs City Hall.
The history-making council’s newest members – Lisa Middleton, the first transgender person elected to a non-judicial office in California, and Christy Holstege, an attorney who identifies as bisexual – will be sworn in at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Palm Springs City Council.
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They join Mayor Robert Moon, who has been with his husband and partner for 35 years; Councilman Geoff Kors, whose husband is a Palm Springs Unified School Board member; and Councilman J.R. Roberts, who is a single gay man.
When I read news items like this, I am staggered by how much progress has been made just within the last decade or two but am conscious of how far the country has yet to go to achieve full equality for the LGBT community. There are still a whole lot of people out there who are viciously anti-gay and think nothing of discriminating against members of the LGBT community in many ways and condemning, harassing, and even physically attacking them. People like devout Christian Pat Robertson, who is no doubt praying for his god to any day now destroy Palm Springs with floods and earthquakes and maybe even send frogs and locusts, to teach the residents a lesson for electing these sinners to office.
It’s a sign that we’ve come a long way, but we also have a long way to go. The optimist in me hopes that we will see more and more LGBT people in positions of leadership at bigger cities and the state level and Federal level soon. People still oppose this though so it will not be easy.
Which side of the San Andreas Fault are they on?
Looks like the west side.
Nerd #3
Ah. Well, then.
So it goes.
仕方がない。
So that’s why southern California is on fire. It makes total sense!*
(* By which I mean, no sense at all.)