Christine Quinn, openly LGBTQ Speaker of the NYC Council, has announced her plan to run for Mayor.
A Quinnipiac University poll released late last month finds Quinn, who would become the city’s first female and openly gay mayor, leads New York City Public Advocate Bill De Blasio and other leading Democratic challengers. The survey also found 63 percent of respondents are comfortable with a gay mayoral candidate.
Quinn told the Washington Blade last September LGBT issues remain an integral part of her agenda.
She introduced a bill in 2004 to require city contractors to offer equal benefits to registered same-sex domestic partners and married heterosexual couples. Quinn also worked with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Department of Education to implement an anti-bullying curriculum in the city’s public schools.
Quinn has frequently spoken out against anti-LGBT violence in the five boroughs — and she joined other New York City officials who criticized then-Puerto Rico Gov. Luís Fortuño for what they contend was his unwillingness to stop anti-LGBT violence on the island in the wake of gay teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado’s 2009 murder.
She also continues to boycott the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade because organizers prohibit gay men and lesbians from marching.
How familiar are you with Quinn? Do you think she’s qualified to Mayor New York City?
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Just because Christine Quinn is gay doesn’t mean that she’s the right choice for the community. In fact, many people in the LGBT community who have looked beyond her identity to her actual record are speaking out. Among them are actors Cynthia Nixon and Alan Cumming, who have endorsed another candidate. Quinn is so confident that her “LGBT base” will support her that she has, on many occasions, betrayed the community. For example, she invokes the Stonewall riot when speaking to gay groups, but, behind the scenes, she rubber-stamped an NYPD law curbing NYer’s constitutional right to free assembly. Also, instead of helping the dozens of middle-aged gay men in her district who were entrapped and falsely arrested for prostitution in the city’s effort to shut down porn shops, Christine Quinn attempted to silence them after she learned that they planned a high profile protest at Gracie Mansion, a move that would embarrass her politically. When the arrests were taking place, Quinn calculated that it was more politically expedient to ignore the victims of these false arrests than to speak out against the NYPD’s vice squad. She thinks she can take our community’s support for granted.
If NYC voters and gay people around the country who are donating to her campaign took the time to look beyond Christine Quinn’s identity to her actual record, she would be voted out of office in a minute. As any civic minded person in NYC will tell you, Christine Quinn has violated the public trust and betrayed her constituents over and over in the process of grabbing more power. Public service doesn’t even enter into the equation for her. As the NY Observer stated in June 2012, “Ms. Quinn has made it clear that political calculation, not the common good, is at the heart of her decision-making.”