There's no question that 2013 was an historic year for the LGBT community, with the U.S. Supreme Court's striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act a major highlight.
On the local level, a breakthrough occurred last month in St. Petersburg, where Darden Rice and Amy Foster were both elected to serve on the City Council. There they will join sitting Councilman Steve Kornell, for a total of three openly gay politicians serving on the Council simultaneously. (The previous high was one.)
Though she downplayed the significance during the campaign, on Monday night Rice finally admitted what many already thought: "It's a big deal," she said.
[jump]Speaking to the Hillsborough GLBTA Caucus in St. Petersburg, Rice added "It's a big deal because visibility is important; visibility saves lives; visibility strengthens our community."
During the campaign, Rice and Foster's sexual orientation never really materialized as an issue. The closest the campaign got to that kind of mudslinging was when Foster's general election opponent in her District 8 race, Steve Galvin, sent out a robocall denigrating Foster for her lack of any major public involvement in the community, save for "being vice president of the gay pride parade.”
The fact that St. Pete's City Council might end up with three open members was always a news story, even if the candidates (and Kornell) seemed to never want to talk about it during the campaign. Blogger Peter Schorsch initially brought up the matter back in the summer, and the Tribune's Chris O'Donnell published a story in late June about the possibility of it happening.
St. Pete does not have the most out City Council members in the country. In November, New York City added three out members to their City Council, bringing the total to six. Of course, that board is considerably larger than St. Pete's — they have 51 members representing the five boroughs. St. Pete has eight Council members.
Over the summer, CL spoke with Councilman Steve Kornell, who said he was apprehensive about how the media might handle the story of three openly gay members serving at the same time. He said that while some people might make it an issue, it really shouldn't matter.
‘We should be evaluated on the merits, and when you do that I think that Darden and Amy are both incredible candidates. Both have great plans, like I said, I’ve heard each of them speak, both have plans. And that’s what I hope the media will focus on as well."
Equality Florida's Nadine Smith told CL earlier this year that she was more excited about the fact that the election of Foster and Rice would double the number of women on the board. (Rice is succeeding the lone female on the current board, Leslie Curran, who was term limited out.)
"I just don’t think that’s what people think about when they think about city council races in St. Pete," Smith said back in June. "I think they want to know where people stand on the issues, and since there's been a breakthrough with the election of Steve Kornell — he won election handily — I think the kind of breakthrough moment in that there’s some sort of novelty moment for the gay community has sort of passed, and now people just want to know: Are you strong about the issues that we care about?"
On Monday night, Rice said she was in Denver recently meeting people working on issues regarding LGBT issues from other parts of the world.
"What's important and what's happening in our community in St. Pete is that we should never take it for granted and we should never forget the context of every important step that we take forward, because in the context of history I would say, it's a very big deal."
"I think it's very exciting, I think it's a big deal, too," added Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who attended the event.