LGBTQ Election Analysis

Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp and LGBTQ+ activist Mark Segal sit at the governor's dining room table in 1975, planning the state's first LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination legislation.

from Mark Segal of Philadelphia Gay News: If you're one of my readers from outside Pennsylvania, bear with me for a moment. I need to talk about my home state first. Then we'll get to the extraordinary amount of money ($187 million) Republicans poured into attacking the LGBTQ+ community during this election, and what the voters had to say about it.

But first, Pennsylvania. And for me, this one is personal.

After 51 years of waiting, fighting, organizing, lobbying and demanding equality, Pennsylvania may finally be on the verge of making LGBTQ+ civil rights the law of the land.

Think about that. Fifty-one years.

With Democrats celebrating historic victories in Pennsylvania, including their takeover of the State Senate, the possibility of passing comprehensive LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections is no longer just a dream. It could become reality within the first 100 days of the new legislative session.

During the campaign, Gov. Josh Shapiro made his position clear: Give him a Democratic State Senate, and he'll work to codify marriage equality and bring full equality to Pennsylvania.

Now, before we start popping champagne corks, a word of caution. Give the governor some room to maneuver. He has an ambitious legislative agenda, and the order in which bills move will depend not only on him but also on the leadership of the State House and Senate. The good news is that the political leadership necessary to advance equality may finally be in place.

Let's also give credit where it's due. In the last legislative session, Shapiro and House Democrats supported equality legislation, but the Republican-controlled Senate stood in the way. Senate Republican Leader Kim Ward and her caucus had the opportunity to help end decades of discrimination. They chose not to.

Now the voters may have taken that decision out of their hands.

And here's where this story becomes deeply personal.

Accompanying this column is a photograph of Gov. Milton Shapp and me sitting around the governor's dining room table, discussing what would become Pennsylvania's pioneering efforts to recognize the rights of gay people.

That was 1975.

We were living in a world where being openly gay could cost you your job, your home, your family and sometimes your life. We weren't asking for special treatment. We were asking for the same rights every other Pennsylvanian took for granted.

Fifty-one years later, I can look at that photograph and remember the hope we had around that table. I can also remember the friends and fellow activists who fought alongside us, many of whom are no longer here to see what may finally happen.

So, if I get a little emotional when that legislation is signed, I hope you'll understand.

I've been waiting more than half a century for that moment.

Now, to the national picture.

Republicans and their allied political organizations spent staggering sums attempting to turn transgender Americans, and by extension the entire LGBTQ+ community, into political weapons.

The reported national figure is $187 million, including an estimated $87 million in Texas alone. Those figures still need to be independently verified, but the political strategy itself was unmistakable.

Rather than focusing on the price of groceries, the cost of housing, healthcare or the economic anxieties facing American families, Republican campaigns repeatedly tried to frighten voters with attacks on transgender people.

In state after state, voters were bombarded with advertisements accusing Democratic candidates of supporting what the ads called "men in women's sports."

In Texas, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico became a target of personal attacks and attempts to question his identity. But something extraordinary happened.

Talarico won. In Texas.

And across the nation, Democrats won races Republicans had expected to keep.

Now, I'm not suggesting that every Republican defeat was caused by anti-transgender advertising. Elections are more complicated than that. But the results should send a powerful message to Republican strategists who believed attacking a small and vulnerable community was their ticket to victory.

Americans are worried about paying their bills, affording their medications, keeping their health insurance and providing a better future for their children.

And here's the lesson Republicans apparently forgot: You cannot pay your rent with prejudice. You cannot lower the price of groceries with discrimination. And attacking a transgender teenager won't make anyone's health insurance more affordable.

Voters wanted solutions to their problems, not politicians inventing new enemies.

And that brings us to Washington.

For the first time in this new political chapter, Democrats have won control of both the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

That presents an extraordinary opportunity, but also an extraordinary responsibility.

In 1974, Pennsylvania Congressman Robert N.C. Nix Sr. and New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug introduced the earliest federal gay civil rights bills. Think about that. Half a century ago, a congressman from Philadelphia and a Congresswoman from NY were already demanding federal protections for our community.

And we're still waiting.

Now that Democrats will control both chambers of Congress, it's time to stop talking about equality as a distant goal and start treating it as unfinished business.

Pass the Equality Act. Send it to President Donald Trump's desk.

Let him decide whether he wants to sign legislation protecting millions of Americans from discrimination or stand in the doorway of history and block it.

Let the American people see exactly where he stands.

For decades, Republicans have used our community as a political punching bag, hoping that fear would deliver votes. This election suggests that strategy has serious limits.

But there's a larger lesson here, one that goes beyond Democrats and Republicans.

I was at Stonewall in 1969. I sat with a Pennsylvania governor in 1975 discussing gay rights. I watched a Philadelphia congressman demand federal protections when most politicians wouldn't even say the word "gay" in public.

I've spent my life watching doors slam in our faces, and then watching our community organize, fight and eventually push those doors open.

Today, in Pennsylvania and across America, we may be standing before another one of those doors.

But winning an election is not the same as winning equality. Political power means nothing unless those who hold it have the courage to use it.

So, Gov. Shapiro, Pennsylvania's legislative leaders and the new Democratic leadership in Washington, the voters have given you an opportunity that generations of LGBTQ Americans could only dream about.

Fifty-one years ago, we asked our government to recognize our humanity. We marched, we protested, we organized, and we buried far too many friends who never lived to see the progress they helped create.

We are not asking for another promise. We are asking you to finish the job.

History has opened the door. Now walk through it. And this time, bring equality with you.

About the Author

Mark Segal Mark Segal is an American journalist. He is the founder and publisher of Philadelphia Gay News and has won numerous journalism awards for his column "Mark My Words," including best column by The National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspaper Association and The Society of Professional Journalists.