aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Schwarzenegger’s lesbian chief of staff

I’d like to think a lesbian chief of staff a good thing…

Ms. Kennedy’s 25-year career in Democratic Party politics includes serving as deputy chief of staff and a cabinet secretary to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s predecessor, Gray Davis, who was ousted by Mr. Schwarzenegger in a stunning recall vote in 2003.

But Ms. Kennedy said she had decided to join the Schwarzenegger administration because she believed in the governor’s agenda. She said rebuilding the state’s infrastructure, including its pocked freeways and woefully inadequate public transportation system, without raising taxes ranked at the top of their shared priority list.

Though a lesbian who was, as she frequently describes it, “married” to her partner in a 1999 commitment ceremony on Maui, she supported the governor’s veto this year of a bill that would have allowed same-sex marriage in California. She cited the voters’ support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman in a statewide ballot measure several years ago and suggested that pushing the gay rights envelope too far could prompt a backlash.

...BUT I DON’T.

Rebuilding an infrastructure without taxes is something for nothing. A “married” lesbian who supports a veto of a same-sex marriage bill is rank hypocrisy.