LESSONS FROM MICHIGAN AND MIAMI

Another encouraging sign is that in four out of five initiatives in which gay equality was on the table, voters came out in favor of inclusion. In three votes in Michigan, an American Family Association bid to exclude gays permanently from any civil rights recognition in Traverse City, Kalamazoo, and Huntington Woods, was soundly beaten. In Miami Beach, once home to Anita Bryant’s crusade, another initiative to give partnership benefits to city employees succeeded. Only in Houston was a partnership measure defeated – but by a very close call in a very conservative city. More evidence that Republicans need to look at these results and think about where their party is headed. Among the more promising signs, of course, is the nascent candidacy for California’s governorship of Dick Riordan. If the Californian Republican Party, long destroyed by far rightists, cannot get behind Riordan, then they fully deserve the ignominy and failure they have been courting for years.