Message #64832

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.rollcall.com/news/kentucky-gay-senate-candidate-anybody-care
8/15/16
Kentucky Has a Gay Senate Candidate — Does Anybody Care?

America may be closer to a post-gay state of politics than most realize

FANCY FARM, KENTUCKY — Jim Gray walked to the lectern on stage, leaned in to the microphone, and began to speak. Kentucky’s openly gay Senate candidate was making history.

He would say later the boos were so loud he could barely hear his own voice.

No more than 10 yards in front of the Democrat, a teeming mass of yelling, chanting Republicans were trying to intimidate him. A few hundred of them had crammed underneath this pavilion, no bigger than half a football field, to stay dry from the storm soaking the surrounding fairgrounds in this tiny western Kentucky town.

Gray, of course, welcomed this.

The St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic is an annual showcase for Kentucky’s top politicians to give (they hope) a funny, sharp-elbowed speech at the other party’s expense. While they speak, hundreds of loud-mouthed partisans are encouraged to yell and scream as loudly as they can — as if the American political id was caged in a small pavilion two hours from a major airport.

“I want to introduce myself to Senator McConnell,” he said, looking over to the Senate majority leader seated a few feet away, who minutes earlier had given his own speech. The Republicans, whose voices drowned out the sound of nearby thunder, chanted “Go away Gray!”   

The candidate continued: “He earlier called me a ‘nobody.’ Well, let me introduce myself, senator. I am Jim Gray, and I am the guy who is going to beat Rand Paul.”

What went unnoticed this recent Saturday afternoon was that Gray was probably first openly gay person to speak at Fancy Farm. Records aren’t easy to come by for something that began in 1880, but veterans of the event say they can’t recall an openly gay speaker.

This is how Gray’s campaign has gone: He’s making history, and nobody seems to notice. Or, for that matter, care.

Gray would be the first openly gay man to serve in the United States Senate, and the possibility that Kentucky would be the state to elect him should be remarkable. This is a Southern state that sits on the buckle of the Bible Belt, where even the Democratic Party is culturally conservative.

It’s a state where, only a year ago, Kim Davis made international news when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the small county where she served as a clerk.

And yet, Gray’s sexual orientation has drawn little interest, from voters, his opponents, or the even the media.

“I’m constantly surprised by what a non-issue this has become,” said Geoff Reed, a longtime adviser to Gray.

“I’m constantly surprised by what a non-issue this has become.”

— Geoff Reed

Gray’s campaign is undoubtedly a sign of how far gay and lesbian candidates have come. It even suggests that in the year 2016, they may not have all that much further to go.

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