Some good political news for a change.
From today's NY Times. Far as I know, this is the first time any GLBT's been elected to a significant post outside of Manhattan. Changing demographics... the neighborhood's increasingly glbt... but *75%* ! That means he had significant cross-over appeal.
Interesting profile: City Council Member Danny Dromm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/nyregion/16metjournal.html?ref=todayspaper>>>>>At first glance, it might seem incongruous that gay people would find acceptance in a place that is home to large populations of South Asian and South American immigrants, who usually hold conservative values. In the days leading up to the general election, Mr. Dromm’s Republican opponent, a Bangladeshi Muslim named Mujib Rahman, tried to turn his rival’s sexual orientation into a campaign issue, denouncing Mr. Dromm as a “radical gay activist.”
Still, Mr. Dromm, 54, won with nearly 75 percent of the vote.
Jackson Heights was not always this way. Mr. Dromm, a veteran gay activist and former teacher at an elementary school, recalled that a police helicopter hovered overhead, in case violence broke out, when the neighborhood held Queens’s first gay pride parade in 1993. Tensions had been running high since a gay man from Colombia, Julio Rivera, was stabbed to death in a bias attack three years earlier.>>>>>>>>
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