New York Times, Nov 2, 1981, pg. A16

Houston Accepts New Political Force

By William K. Stevens

Special to The New York Times

HOUSTON, Nov. 1 – Frank Mann was one of the first politicians, but far from the last, to discover that the Gay Political Caucus ahs very quickly become a major political force in this city, whose image is so often associated with the Wild West.

Two years ago, the outspoken Mr. Mann was running for re-election, city-wide and at large, to the City Council. He made no secret of his contempt for homosexuals. “Oddwads,” he called them on a stump.

The Gay Political Caucus put its newly developed grass-roots organization to work with a vengeance to defeat him. And when the votes were counted, Mr. Mann had been soundly beaten by Eleanor Tinsley, who had publicly supported homosexual rights.

To this day, the caucus’ backing is generally considered to have made the pivotal difference in Mrs. Tinsley’s becoming one of the first two women on the City Council.

Days of Intolerance Are Over

Now there is another election campaign going on, and this time virtually all the major candidates take homosexuals’ political power seriously. Gone are the days, as recently as 1973, when Louie Welch, then Mayor, could walk out of the council chambers when representatives of a homosexual rights group started speaking-and get away with it. Or when Mr. Mann could say the Mayor had probably left the room because he was sick to his stomach. Or when Jim McConn, then a city councilman and now Mayor, could contemplate Houston’s growing homosexual population and wonder publicly, “What are we doing wrong?”

This year, Mr. McConn actively sought the endorsement of the Gay Political Caucus in his bid for a third two-year term, as he had successfully done two years ago. So did other major mayoral and councilmanic candidates, submitting themselves to intensive “screening” interviews by representatives of the caucus.

This time the group’s mayoral endorsement has gone to City Controller Kathy Whitmire, who is favored to poll the most votes in Tuesday’s election and easily win a spot in a runoff later this month. If she is elected, she will be the first woman to serve as mayor of the country’s fifth largest city, and the Gay Political Caucus will undoubtedly be able to take credit for aiding her campaign.

Election Carefully Watched

For that reason, the election is being carefully watched by leaders of homosexual rights organizations around the county. In the view of Lucia Valeska, executive director of the New York-based National Gay Task Force, the extent and sophistication of political organization in Houston’s large and growing homosexual community have reached a point where the city “is right at the top of the list,” along with San Francisco and Washington.

Through conventional means such as telephone banks and door-to-door canvassing, the caucus estimates that it can directly influence 50,000 voters, only half of them homosexual. That is not inconsiderable in a mayoral election where perhaps 250,000 votes may be cast, and especially not in a close race.

For candidates, the caucus’ backing can be a mixed blessing. In some ways, says Mrs. Whitmire, the front-runner in the mayor’s race, its support “has created a big problem you me.”

But, she said, “I have always taken the position that the support gained from that group offsets the votes that are lost by those so adamantly opposed” to homosexuals. The caucus gains its financial support from a homosexual community whose numbers are estimated at 250,000, many-and perhaps most-of whom have skilled or professional jobs and who have moved here for two reasons. First, for them as for migrants in general, Houston’s surging economy offers lots of opportunity for the skilled and the professional. And second, Houston is becoming known as a place where homosexuals can find the freedom and mutual support that make life easier.

“You wouldn’t expect it,” said lee Harrington, the chairman of the Gay Political Caucus.

Contrary to its frontier image, he explained, Houston is a more varied, cosmopolitan and tolerant place than it once might have been.

“I think that probably the influx of all kinds of people from all around the country is having an effect on the city as a whole and on attitudes,” he said. “It’s a futuristic city in many respects.”

In the view of Lucia Valeska, Houston’s homosexual community is galvanized and organized politically to an extent that is not true in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, which are said to contain bigger homosexual populations. The major reasons, Mr. Harrington and others say, are harassment by the Houston police and, to a lesser extent, discrimination by the city government.

Mr. Harrington, a 39-year-old migrant from Michigan, was dismissed from the city convention bureau when he was elected chairman of the Gay Political Caucus. He now has a lawsuit pending against the city in Federal court. His experience, he said, “incensed” him and made him “dedicate myself to eradicating this kind of thing.”

For the homosexual community as a whole, he said, police harassment has been the galvanizing force.

“We can thank the Houston Police Department as our motivator,” he said.

Many of the questions put to candidates by the Gay Political Caucus in screening sessions have to do with police policy. But, Mr. Harrington said, “our people are as interested in mass transit and traffic problems and street conditions as well as human rights. What’s good for the city as a whole is good for the gay community.”