by guest contributor Isaiah Poole
The Human Rights Campaign ball at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel was not your average inaugural party; it was a true celebration of history.
At “Out for Equality,” the celebrants were already primed to toast the re-election of a president that had made groundbreaking moves on gay-lesbian-bisexual-
But President Obama’s inclusion of the gay rights struggle in his inaugural address – referring to the principle of equality that “guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall” – made for an especially poignant evening.
Mayor Cory Booker
“I stood there and heard my president be a fully evolved man now,” said Newark Mayor Cory Booker, one of several dignitaries who were at the black-tie event.
Booker shared the stage with two ardent gay rights champions, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan. Franken noted that Minnesotans voted against a constitutional amendment that restricted marriage to heterosexual couples. Hassan had led that state’s legalization of gay marriage when she was in the state senate before winning election to governor last November.
Senator Tammy Baldwin
But the politician who received a hero’s welcome at the event was Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., that body’s first openly gay person. During her remarks, she paid tribute to Obama, noting that in his address the struggle for gay and lesbian equality was, with the struggles of other Americans, “woven into the same fabric that made America possible.”
“It was the first time I felt included, and not just a spectator to democracy,” said Deborah Dubois, board member of the Mautner Project, a lesbian health advocacy organization based in Washington. To be embraced by the president “with heart and passion and enthusiasm … to feel that was gratifying,” she said.
Air Force Colonel Brenda Cartier of Washington, who attended the event with her partner Ann Harrington, said she was grateful to celebrate “being able to live fully who I am and being able to serve my country.”
Rep. Grayson (C)
Other notables at the ball included openly gay Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., and his partner Marlon Reis, MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews and wife Kathleen Matthews, the former WJLA-TV anchor who is now a Marriott Hotel executive, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and actor and former Obama administration official Kal Penn. Cyndi Lauper was the keynote entertainer of a program that included Tony Award winner Audra McDonald and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.
