The Election of Openly Gay Public Officials in American Communities

As a newly emergent political minority, lesbians and gay men have begun to seek representation in political office, particularly at the local level. Using a purposeful sample of 126 cities and counties, the authors explore openly gay candidacies for, and election to, public office in the early 1990s. They employed four theoretical models—urbanism/social diversity, resource mobilization, political opportunity structure, and communal protest—that have been useful in explaining African-American, Latino, and female electoral success. The nature and pattern of electoral activities of lesbians and gay men are similar to those of other disadvantaged minorities.