Love Among the Spuds: Tammy Baldwin's Senate Run in Wisconsin
Great article giving a vignette of Tammy Baldwin's campaign for the open Senate seat in Wisconsin. If she is elected, she will be the first openly gay Senator in history - and what is remarkable about her run is just how little the "issue" of her sexual orientation matters. This is fantastic - of course, you expect that from a state like Wisconsin, who has had both openly gay Democrat and Republican legislators at the state and federal level. But I liked what the article had to say about how the times are changing, that sexual orientation is becoming increasingly seen as a non-issue.
Really, this is the best thing to expect from rising tolerance - you don't need people dancing around with Rainbow stickers everywhere, you just need a person's background to become a non-issue, to be accepted without question. It'll be a long time before this attitude extends beyond states like Wisconsin, but it's a good start nevertheless.
It also brought to mind something that Malgosia said to me last week, when I was talking about Anderson Cooper's article about officially coming out. She didn't understand why it was a big deal, and here the article's author, Frank Bruni, echoes her sentiment - it wasn't a big deal, because you have Ellen DeGeneres as a J.C. Penny spokesman. Cooper waited far too long.
But I can see why Dan Savage hasn't picked up on Baldwin's run - she isn't a gay rights activist. Savage does have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to supporting openly gay politicians; if they're not loudly outspoken on the issue of gay rights, he doesn't hear about them at all.
Even if Baldwin loses, I find it remarkable and heartening that her sexual orientation doesn't mean a damn thing.
Article written by Frank Bruni and published in the New York Times.
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