Southern-Style Activism : Gay Migration to Atlanta Adding Up to Political Clout

ATLANTA —  Atlanta has long been a magnet to Southern homosexuals who believed that they would never be accepted in smaller towns.

“It’s a little island of enlightenment in a sea of bigotry,” Gil Robinson, a lobbyist for several gay groups, said of the city.

Homosexuals have never taken to the streets to demand equality here, but with an estimated 300,000 gays in the metropolitan area, they have organized as a potent political force. Nowhere has that been more apparent than in the race to succeed Mayor Andrew Young.

“I think gay and lesbian people here are becoming a real political power, probably getting close to New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles,” said Richard Swanson, administrator of the Atlanta Gay Center.

Fulton County Commission Chairman Michael Lomax and former Mayor Maynard Jackson, the two leading Democratic candidates in the Oct. 3 election until Lomax dropped out in August , vigorously campaigned in the gay community.

Both offered detailed platforms on gay issues. They promised to seek funds for housing for people with AIDS, to appoint gays and lesbians to city posts and to establish police task forces to prevent unprovoked assaults on homosexuals.

The city’s gay voters have never before been courted so openly, said Jeffrey Laymon, executive secretary of the Metropolitan Atlanta Council of Gay and Lesbian Organizations. “We do have the numbers now. The political situation has changed. They have to pay attention.”

Even those who oppose including homosexuals in affirmative-action programs agree that Atlanta’s gay population has developed some muscle.

“I think it’s anti-family and it’s anti-God,” said Nancy Schaefer, chairwoman of Citizens for Public Awareness, which has fought for repeal of a city ordinance amendment that gives gays special protection from discrimination. Atlanta has become a haven for homosexuals, she said.

Unlike San Francisco or New York, the rise of gay power here came not with a surge of militancy, but gradually. Gay activism surfaced in America in the early 1970s and by the time Atlanta’s homosexual population reached politically significant numbers, much of the work had already been done.

“By 1980, attitudes about equality had already changed or moderated across the country,” Swanson said. “There probably wasn’t a great need to get out and march. We’re able to achieve much more with a lower-key approach.”

He cited Atlanta’s status as a center of the civil rights movement and its Southern social style for the lack of confrontation over gay issues. “A lot of gay and lesbian people tend to be from the smaller towns in the South. They still have a lot of that traditional Southern mentality.”

Midtown Atlanta, a hodgepodge of high-rise office towers, comfortable neighborhoods, nightclubs and shopping centers, is the center of a gay life style that has been quietly woven into the city’s social fabric.

“We’re invisible,” said Marie Murray of the Greater Atlanta Political Awareness Committee. “We don’t just care about gay issues. We’re interested in all of the issues that everybody else is.”

Still, many gay activists say their greatest victory was the addition of sexual orientation to an anti-discrimination ordinance in 1986. It has survived one repeal effort and is facing another.

Schaefer said she does not believe a sexual preference group should be considered a minority, particularly in affirmative action programs. She believes that gay political power bodes ill for the city.

“It concerns me, where the city is heading. When the morals of the city start falling apart, we will suffer the consequences,” she said, adding that the suburbs will become more conservative in reaction to gay clout in the city.

Many gays and lesbians own prosperous businesses and have money to contribute to politicians --and are active in one or more of the dozens of gay and lesbian organizations that rate politics high on their agenda.

Jackson campaign spokesman Angelo Fuster said the gay population is “very important” to building a successful coalition with Atlanta’s black majority and winning a citywide election. And many politicians no longer fear a backlash if they openly support gay issues. “Although there is a lot of homophobia (sic), it has lessened considerably,” he said.

Lomax recently reached out for gay votes with a proposal to include gay-owned businesses in a study of Fulton County’s affirmative action program.

Les Hough, a specialist in Southern politics at Georgia State University, said the proposal shows the role that gay voters--especially white ones--play in predominantly black Atlanta. “By appealing to the margins, to the single-issue groups, you can solidify your white support,” he said.

“In a close race, it can make a big difference.”

The prominence of gay issues in Atlanta shows the differences between city and country in Georgia, where gubernatorial candidates never mention gay rights as an important platform plank, he said. “Anyone who had ambitions of statewide office in Georgia. . . would downplay gay rights issues in any race.”

Swanson said gays and lesbians have simply become part of the fabric of Atlanta, coming of age along with the fast-growing city. “A high percentage of the gay people in Atlanta now have 15-plus years of being involved in the community. All that is paying off now.”