Without a doubt, Chuck Wolfe is one of the LGBT community’s most charismatic and powerful leaders. Currently, he is serving as President and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute, whose mission is to recruit, train and support openly LGBT candidates, elected officials and appointed leaders. He arrived at the Victory Fund with extensive political experience having worked for former Florida Governor Lawton Childs. Under his leadership, the organization has grown by leaps and bounds. The Victory Fund’s leadership training program for prospective candidates is one of the best in the nation. Under his guidance, dozens of candidates have found their way into the halls of power and are serving their constituents openly and proudly.

Electing Our Own is Real Power
by Chuck Wolfe

I’m not one to pretend that I don’t like politics. It’s always been fashionable to say so, but among politicians that’s often a little white lie. The truly effective political leaders I know have a true passion to serve people, and they actually like politics. For some it is the sport of it, but the rest, I suspect, feel the same way about politics that I do. It is an alternative to violence--a competition not of arms but ideas. Politics is immediate and visceral. It’s human.

A lot of gay people follow politics, and a lot of politics these days seems to be about us—from opinions about the Vice President’s forthcoming grandchild to debates over marriage equality and military service. Any right-wing blog discussion of the GOP primary season is rife with references to one or another candidate’s former, current and future positions on LGBT issues. The same is true on the left, particularly about the Democratic candidates’ positions on marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

But something else is happening with regard to gay politics. Gay people as candidates are winning elections in greater numbers than even before. No longer content to sit on the sidelines and hope that their straight friends do the right thing, openly LGBT men and women across the country are deciding that our voices are clearest and loudest when we have a place at the table of democracy.

I’m reminded of a story that Alabama Rep. Patricia Todd tells. Pat was elected to the state legislature last year in a hard-fought race that made her the first openly gay elected official in Alabama history.

A longtime civil rights activist and HIV/AIDS advocate, Patricia was often called on to represent her community in debates over the course of policy in Alabama. Once, along with friends from the statewide LGBT rights group Equality Alabama, Patricia found herself testifying at the state capital in front of a panel considering a bill that would ban any recognition of homosexuality in books or materials bought with tax dollars. This was just another in long string of anti-gay bills and amendments she and her friends had to endure as residents of the state. Exasperated that their testimony was falling on deaf ears, Patricia stopped reading her prepared remarks. She looked at the panel members, many of whom seemed not be paying attention. “Why do you hate gay people?” she asked.

On the long ride back to Birmingham, the mood was not good. Discussion centered on the seeming hopelessness of advancing LGBT rights in Alabama, or even stopping the tide of anti-gay legislation that had become the hobby of some members of the legislature. Then it hit them. Nothing was going to change unless someone from our community sat amongst those legislators. A living, breathing representation of the lives they were debating would be a gigantic step towards facing down prejudice and fear, and would instill hope among gay people in Alabama who had felt powerless for so long. They decided Patricia should run for a seat in the State House, where that stark question—“Why do you hate me?”—would have to be answered, face to face, every day.

Of course, that campaign garnered statewide and even national attention. And when she finally won, Patricia became a symbol and a hero for a community that needed a voice like hers in Montgomery. Now, people like Equality Alabama Board Chair Howard Bayless, who has seen plenty of despair in his community, say Patricia’s election has begun to lift the fear that gripped so many there for so long. Politicians who once discounted the gay community are calling to court their support. Policy wasn’t working for gay people in Alabama, but politics did.

I’m convinced we’re still at the beginning of this shift from a single-minded focus on policy change to a multi-faceted fight for equality that includes the election of qualified, committed openly LGBT leaders. There are now more than 370 openly LGBT elected officials nationwide, but there are more than a half million elective offices. We are worthy of filling those seats, worthy of being the vote, worthy of electing our own to help change the face and voice of America’s politics.

Our straight allies are vital partners in our fight. They are often the trailblazers we need to spark change. But just as women did not leave their fight for suffrage to men, and just as African-Americans did not expect their white friends to lead the civil rights movement in the 1960s, gays and lesbians must step up to lead their communities and be the voice for change. It worked in Alabama, and it’s working around the country.

To be sure, politics isn’t for everyone; nor is leadership. But for leaders who crave change, it is the sole non-violent means to achieving lasting results in a democracy, and it is among our best hopes for reaching equality in the not so distant future.