Today, I had a meeting with one of my comps committee members, who happens to be immersed in Houston LGBT politics outside of academia. If you didn't know, we are currently early voting for our mayoral election here in Houston. We were having a discussion about the irony of homophobic opponents of current (out lesbian) mayor Annise Parker supporting the black Democratic opponent, Ben Hall. She pulled up one picture on Facebook, in particular, of a house that was flying a Confederate flag and displayed a Ben Hall sign that had written on it: "Kick Out Lesbian Mayor." I'll wait for you to wrap your head around that. There's a whole lot to unpack there, but that's another diary.
That led her to tell me a delightful story about a rather surreal experience Parker once had, which prompted me to read more on it. I was eventually led to a wonderful article on the subject that Parker wrote for OutSmart, Houston's LGBT magazine, when she was City Controller. While it may not have been her intention when she wrote the article in 2008, looking back on it, I think the incident she describes is rather symbolic of the progress the LGBT community has made not only in Houston, but nationwide, since the 1980s. The article is about a single photograph that appeared in the Houston Chronicle of Parker standing at the end of the notoriously homophobic Mayor Louie Welch's funeral procession, the sole representative of the City of Houston present when the picture was taken. I furiously searched for the photograph, but with no luck.
Nevertheless, this brief moment in time is as ironic as it is morbidly humorous as it is symbolic of how much our social and political climate has changed since Welch remarked in 1985 on the evening news that his AIDS plan was to "shoot the queers." I was recently interviewed by our campus newspaper for an LGBT-related article, and I was asked about my take on Mayor Parker. While I was critical of her administration for not pushing for an LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance similar to the one San Antonio just passed, I was also careful to note how much has changed since 1985, when the City of Houston voted overwhelmingly to deprive gay and lesbian city workers of anti-discrimination protection. Simply being elected as an out lesbian in a southern city with a rather robust history of homophobia is a sign of deep, deep progress. Just thinking about then-City Controller Parker, an open lesbian and former gay activist, standing and watching Mayor Welch's casket being transported...there's a whole lot of symbolism in that kind of a snapshot, which is why I really wish I could find the photograph. But Parker's article is enough for now, I suppose. It may be from 2008, but it's worth sharing, even five years later. And what better day to share it than on the day that I cast my vote for Mayor Parker! Follow me below the fold for highlights of the article (which I encourage you to read in full) and for some relevant Houston LGBT history...
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First, some background on Louie Welch. While he is rightfully remembered for his "shoot the queers" comment (which I'll get into below), the Houston Chronicle details some other important aspects of his political career in their article announcing his death from lung cancer:
Welch's political career, which spanned nearly 40 years, began in 1949 when, as a political unknown, he was elected to Houston City Council. He was a councilman for eight years, from 1950 until 1952 and from 1956 to 1962.
After running unsuccessfully for mayor in 1952 and 1954, Welch was elected mayor for the first time in 1963, ousting the entrenched incumbent, Lewis Cutrer.
In challenging Cutrer, Welch's role was as an outsider jousting with the establishment. As such, he drew support from labor, the poor and minorities. In later years, much of that support evaporated, especially that of blacks.
[...]
Perhaps Welch's most vexing problem as mayor stemmed from the police chief who served under him: Herman Short, a tough, no-nonsense, outspoken chief who became a lightning rod for discontent among the city's blacks.
These feelings erupted in May 1967 in two days of battles between Houston police and students at predominantly black Texas Southern University. One police officer was killed and about 500 TSU students were arrested. These events created a rift between the administration and many of the city's blacks.
More than 20 years later, during his race against Mayor Whitmire, Welch acknowledged that the imputation of racism to him in the wake of the TSU episode still rankled.
"It hurt," Welch said. "It still hurts to be accused of racism. It's just a bum rap."
It was in his 1985 race against Mayor Kathy Whitmire (when he tried to make his mayoral comeback), of course, that Welch uttered those infamous words into a live mic. But that needs to be placed in the context of the Whitmire-backed ordinance City Council Member Anthony Hall proposed in 1984, which prohibited discrimination against city workers on the basis of sexual orientation. From a
Remembering LGBT History diary I wrote on the subject:
In June of 1984, City Council Member Anthony Hall proposed an ordinance that would make the City's practice of non-discrimination toward gays and lesbian employees permanent. The ordinance would simply add sexual orientation to the list of classes not discriminated against by the City. It was a well-intended move--and one that conservatives in Houston apparently weren't ready for. Immediate backlash came from conservative Council Member John Goodner:
What they do in their own communities is their business, I suppose, I just don’t want homosexuals working in city jobs where they could be role models for our children.
That was only the beginning. Despite proponents of the bill, including the GPC, steering away from the "gay rights" frame and emphasizing employment non-discrimination, the backlash from the right wing and from the Moral Majority crowd was constant. Finally, in July, despite the anti-gay rhetoric permeating Houston's political atmosphere, City Council voted to cut off debate and approve the ordinance. Citing the need to avoid an expensive campaign, City Council also voted against holding a public referendum on the issue.
The celebration did not last long. The Committee for Public Awareness (CPA) was soon mobilized to force a public vote on the ordinance. Committee members descended on Houston's businesses and churches to collect signatures. On July 20, the CPA delivered 63,800 signatures to City Hall. The referendum was on.
Indeed it was, and it was a nasty, nasty fight. One that united the CPA, the Republican Party, fundamentalist churches, and, yes, the Ku Klux Klan.
The campaign against the ordinance was well-organized, well-funded, utterly repulsive, and, unfortunately, very effective. The AIDS-related fear-mongering worked, and Houstonians voted 4-to-1 against the ordinance. The result was a tremendous loss of political clout for Houston's gay community, as well as a mayoral election revolving around homophobia. Former mayor Welch ran to unseat Whitmire and made "morality" a centerpiece of his campaign. Running alongside Welch were conservatives attempting to unseat every City Council Member who supported the ordinance. Together, they dubbed themselves the Straight Slate. This is the cultural and political context in which Louie shot himself in the foot, no pun intended. From my diary:
It was October 24, 1985. Staunch conservative Republican Louie Welch, who was running for Houston Mayor against the progressive incumbent Kathy Whitmire, was prepping for an interview with Channel 13, in which he was planning to unveil his four-point plan to fight the AIDS epidemic. AIDS had hit Houston hard, much like other American urban centers, and Welch made an issue out of Whitmire's alleged inaction. Welch had a plan, all right. And what he really felt was about to be made known to the entire City of Houston. While informally discussing the points of his plan before the interview began, he remarked, probably only half-joking:
One of them is to shoot the queers.
Little did Welch know that the newscast was live and the cameras were rolling. An estimated 146,000 people heard his comment. Calls were made to Channel 13. But the interview continued as if his nonchalant remark about murdering gay people was nothing more than a hiccup or unexpected gas.
Later in the day, Welch claimed to have "pulled a Reagan," referring to Reagan's 1982 gaffe about bombing Russia. He added:
I apologize, but I don't think I had the gay vote anyway.
Well, he was right about that. While Welch was able to raise money because of the comments, the gay community took advantage of the moment by selling "Don't Shoot, Louie!" T-shirts, and local, state, and national politicians and organizations condemned the comments. He and the rest of the Straight Slate were defeated at the polls, and Mayor Whitmire stayed in power. The damage to the gay community done by the anti-gay referendum campaign and the mayoral race, however, was deep, and it lasted into the nineties. But social and political winds shifted, and Houston--like the rest of the country--evolved along with those shifting winds. The LGBT community would recover and once again become central to city politics. Today, the Houston GLBT Political Caucus is about as establishment and as mainstream and as relevant in city politics as can be. In 2010, of course, we saw how far the city had progressed since 1985.
But let's back up to 2008, when Welch passed away--and finally, to what the diary is about, Parker's article about her experience at his funeral. She begins by describing that photograph I can't find for the life of me:
I had a truly surreal experience one day last month. And the next day on the front of the Metro Section of the Houston Chronicle was a photograph that captured it. It was a photo of a police honor guard arrayed at attention awaiting a funeral procession. Standing at the end of the row, also at attention, is a woman. The photo is nicely composed, shot from behind to capture the individuals and the shadows they cast.
She goes on to note, with more politeness than I would be able to muster, that Welch was a complicated man who had some antiquated views and said some stupid things. She compares him to that "relative who makes us cringe when he opens his mouth and attacks some minority group, but whom we love for other reasons." She details how he was responsible for securing Houston's water rights, creating the fire department's EMS function, and expanding the city's international presence. She continues:
Courtesy is certainly owed the holder of a political office, at whatever level of politics. This is, of course, why we stand when the president enters the room. One shows respect for the office, whether one respects the person who holds the office or not.
[...]
Welch was a man of his time and that time had passed him by. He was a politician who learned his craft when reporters carefully edited the public personas of the powerful, and all interviews were on tape. The remark would be utterly shocking by today’s standards of public humor, but it was crude and offensive even in the 1980s.
Parker goes on to describe her devotion to the duty of attending the funerals of city officials. Ever the class act, even being a veteran of gay activism during the same time that Welch joked about murdering gay people to the entire television-watching population of Houston, she decided to attend Welch's funeral upon hearing of his death. She ends the article by simply describing the scene captured by the
Houston Chronicle photograph:
When Mayor Welch failed for the first time to attend the most recent city inauguration, I knew he was very ill. When he died, the mayor, council members, and I received notice of the funeral arrangements. He would be accorded what is our version of a state funeral. Out of respect for his devotion to the city I also love, I joined hundreds of mourners and attended.
Former mayors Hofheinz and Lanier attended the service, but slipped away at the end. Mayor White actually had to leave before the service ended. No other sitting city official bothered to attend.
So there I found myself, standing at attention with the honor guard, the lone representative of the elected leadership of the City of Houston. I still have my ["Don't Shoot, Louie!"] T-shirt, carefully saved. I think Mayor Welch might have appreciated the irony.
Yes, call it irony or call it dark humor or call it a polite reverence for a "complicated" man--it is all three. But it's also a snapshot of the progress Houston and our society at large has made, when you think about it. And that progress, as far as we have to go still, is pretty profound. In 2008, Welch--still a symbol of venomous anti-gay bigotry and a product of what Houston and much of the United States used to be--was carried as the highest-ranking openly LGBT official of a major American city, who was about to become the very first openly lesbian
mayor of a major American city, waited for him. Meanwhile, the first president to endorse full LGBT equality would be elected just months later. We have so much work to do. But sometimes it really is awe-inspiring to step back and look at what how far we've come. And sometimes a picture (or, in this case, a description of a picture) says it best.
I don't know--I guess I'm just in that kind of a mood tonight. And I continue to look for the photograph.
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October 24, 2013
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