Gay candidates lost, but blame politics, not prejudice

PHILADELPHIANS are very protective of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.

More so than any other city in America, including LGBT-friendly San Francisco and New York City, according to the Human Rights Campaign. For two years in a row, the national civil-rights group ranked Philadelphia No. 1 for its commitment to LGBT equality.

And yet, voters here have never elected an openly gay candidate to City Council.

Tuesday's primary election was supposed to be a watershed moment - or so LGBT leaders and supporters had hoped.

There was good reason for that. Not one, but two openly gay Democratic candidates - Sherrie Cohen and Paul Steinke - were running for at-large Council seats. In fact, the Democratic City Committee, led by U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (perhaps the ultimate guy's guy), endorsed Cohen. The endorsement was a first.

"I was truly honored," Cohen said yesterday. "It was an historic step for the party to choose me. It was a step forward for the LGBT community as a whole and for our city as a whole."

On Tuesday, Cohen, 60, a public-interest and tenant-rights lawyer, finished eighth, with about 45,000 votes, in a field of 16 Democratic candidates vying for five at-large Council seats. Steinke, 51, former manager of the Reading Terminal Market widely credited with the market's success, came in 10th, with roughly 36,300 votes.

"It's inexcusable that a city as overwhelmingly Democratic as Philadelphia has still yet to elect an LGBT person to City Council," said Joe Corrigan, a Democratic political consultant who worked on Steinke's campaign.

Corrigan, however, said he didn't think Steinke's loss had anything to do with being gay.

"Philadelphia is the most progressive city in the nation when it comes to LGBT civil rights and this election was not a referendum on LGBT leadership," Corrigan said yesterday. "I don't think that this was about people being LGBT or not. I think it was just about inner politics and money."

A blizzard of election-day sample ballots issued by Democratic factions often favoring unendorsed candidates hurt party-endorsed candidates like Cohen. Some ward leaders "cut" Cohen's name from their sample ballot, which gets distributed at the polls, and replaced it with Derek Green's name. Green emerged Tuesday as the top vote-getter among the at-large candidates.

Cohen said she was surprised to see her name dropped from some sample ballots, including the one circulated in 52nd Ward, where Mayor Nutter, a staunch advocate of LGBT rights, is the ward leader.

In the 52nd Ward, Nutter presides over 30 Democratic committee people representing 16 divisions within the Wynnefield and Overbrook neighborhoods. Theoretically, the sample ballots put out by the ward leader should include the names of the candidates endorsed by the Democratic City Committee. But that doesn't always happen and it didn't happen in Nutter's ward. This came as a surprise to Cohen, she said.

"I'm grateful for the mayor's strong support of the LGBT community and I would not think that he would cut from his ward ballot the first openly LGBT candidate for City Council to be endorsed by the Democratic City Committee," Cohen said.

Nutter's spokesman, Mark McDonald, said that the mayor was aware that Cohen's name did not appear on sample ballots in his ward.

"The mayor is aware of what transpired, which is that the committee people within the ward had a meeting and there was overwhelming support for Derek Green," McDonald said yesterday. "There was also discussion of supporting Paul Steinke, but in the end, the ward committee members went for Mr. Green and it's the mayor's understanding that Ms. Cohen never actually asked the committee for its support."

Cohen, however, said she attended a candidates' forum in Nutter's ward and spoke with the ward chair.

Still, she has no regrets.

"I could tell as I traveled throughout the city campaigning that there were some people who did appear to be uncomfortable with me [being gay]," Cohen said. "But at the same time, I felt people were celebrating my run whether or not they were LGBT. I certainly hope that any negativity that homophobic people might have had [toward me] that that was more than balanced out by the enthusiastic support of non-LGBT people who believe in the human dignity of all people."

While campaigning in Northeast Philly, Cohen said, a man told her that he'd been involved in the start of the gay liberation movement.

"He said to me, 'I want to tell you that you are a dream come true for me. You are everything we fought for,' which he described as somebody who is going after their dreams and is being all who they are," Cohen said. "It was just this unexpected kind of joyous moment. A beautiful moment."