On Tuesday, May 28, 1996, I remember walking into the Red Lion Inn in Ontario, California, to have my first experience with presidential politics.  I had no real idea of what to expect other than some Secret Service at the door and a long wait.  I got inside and was surprised when the crowd pushed me and several other young people up toward the front.  They wanted everyone to see that young people were eager to support then-72 year-old Bob Dole. 

I wasn’t really sure who I was going to support for president at that point, but the event was a just a couple of miles from my house and I went on over if for no other reason than to say I was there.  I still have the slip of paper Bob Dole signed for me that day to show for it.  Up to that point I had only voted once, in 1994, when I voted for Republican Pete Wilson for governor and Democrat Gray Davis for lieutenant governor.  Although I grew up with Republican parents, neither showed any real interest in politics, and neither voted regularly.  Unlike them, I always had an interest in public policy and government, so I knew I wanted to be informed and involved. 

Later that year I joined the US Air Force and left home.  I wasn’t all that impressed with Bill Clinton’s approach to national defense and what appeared to be a lack of support for members of the military.  When you’re a young airman taking home $513 a month, you tend to put a lot of weight on who is more likely to support the military.  And thus I began my life as a Republican.

It’s easy to be a Republican in the military because you end up in an environment where most people are like-minded in many different areas, particularly support of national defense – a staple plank of the GOP platform – and it was even easier during the Clinton Administration when the military was stretched thinner than it ever had been up to that point and he engaged us in more military operations than any other president.  I can appreciate the non-military aspects of Clinton’s presidency much more now that I have more worldly experience and education, but I was pretty narrow-minded politically 15 years ago.  I did happen to vote for Gray Davis when he ran for governor of California in 1998.

After getting out of one generally conservative environment, I went to Texas A&M University and joined the Corps of Cadets – an environment that was traditionally even more conservative than that which I had just left.  It wasn’t until my time at A&M that I voted in my first of three Republican primaries, even though I had never voted straight-ticket in any general election.  Again, it was very easy to continue being a Republican, even having gone through the struggle of coming out as a gay man in the Corps in late 2000 after I was discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. 

I worked as a staff intern for Congressman John Culberson in his district office in spring 2004 doing non-partisan Veterans Affairs and Social Security cases for constituents.  I am very proud of the work I did for the constituents of the 7^th District, and it has been prominently displayed on my resume ever since.  Interestingly, Culberson knew I was gay and didn’t care.  In fact, his personal stance on GLBT issues at the time seemed to be very different than his public policy stance.  Of course, we all know he has drifted much farther to the extreme right following the departure of Tom Delay, and I think if he really doesn’t have any personal issues with GLBT people, he shouldn’t go out of his way to attack us and deny us equal rights the way he has, but that’s another post entirely. 

Up to that point the GOP had not really gone officially full-tilt against the GLBT community.  George W. Bush had not yet gone quite so far off the deep religious right end against us, and I felt comfortable enough voting for him since he was our Texas governor.  Needless to say, some buyer’s remorse set in as the winds of social conservatism began to ramp up and George W. Bush began using anti-GLBT rhetoric as a wedge issue (among a variety of other reasons).  In 2004 I voted in my last Republican primary, and I skipped the top of the ballot because I simply could not vote for George W. Bush.

That summer, the Texas GOP adopted an amendment to the state party platform that had been hastily scrawled on a piece of scrap paper indicating marriage should be between a man and a woman, and I think that started the beginning of an end for me that would eventually take three years.  Ultimately I would vote for John Kerry and split my ballot among both Republicans and Democrats in November 2004, and I skipped the 2006 primary entirely.  I wasn’t sure where the GOP was heading, but I vowed I would not be a single-issue voter and would not let anti-GLBT policies dictate every single vote I cast.  My fiscal conservatism and strong support of our military kept me checking some of those R boxes at the voting booth. 

In 2007 I staged what could best be described as a “dry run” for Houston City Council in a special election to fill a vacancy.  There was no real expectation I could win against someone like Melissa Noriega, who eventually won the seat, but it was a good experience in how a citywide campaign really works.  I still identified enough as a Republican at that time to seek Republican support in the non-partisan election.  Out of three candidates who identified as Republicans, I was the only one of them who had ever actually voted in a Republican primary, so what happened that year was truly eye-opening and sealed my departure from the GOP. 

At some point, 2006 I think, I became president of the Houston chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, so it was no real secret I was openly gay.  I thought, idealistically, that I could somehow change the Republican Party from within.  What I found very quickly on the campaign trail was that the GOP cared more about sexual orientation than Republican bona fides.  At first, the county GOP refused to list me as a Republican on its website and denied my primary voting history.  Then it listed my responses to questions regarding GLBT issues in bold red letters.  Finally, it ran robocalls to Republican voters essentially telling them “vote for anyone but the gay guy.” 

Shortly after the election, I thought I would give it one last try to change the party from within by seeking appointment as a precinct chair.  My meeting with the vacancy committee was fascinating and horrifying all at once.  None of us have the time for me to go through that story, but suffice to say, I didn’t put up with any of their lies and bullshit and walked out.  They would rather have no precinct chair than a gay precinct chair, and oddly enough, SD15 chair Ned Watkins was really curious about bondage and S&M. 

My days as a Republican reached their end. 

In some of my academic research I extensively studied the relationship between public opinion, gay rights and public policy as it evolved from 1925 to 2005.  I understood the statistical intricacies of public opinion, partisan relationships and religious affiliation, but I never experienced the practical reality of the politics of gay identity firsthand.  I never truly understood what it meant to be a gay man in the bubble of political application.  Through a great deal of self-reflection and thought, I examined the single-issue connotations of standing up for myself and the GLBT community, and it seemed less single-issue than ever before.  By that time I had been fighting for the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for several years, and GLBT issues became the primary focus of my political activism.

Since that one handwritten amendment in 2004, the Texas GOP platform has grown increasingly anti-GLBT.  No longer was it a matter of saying I wasn’t going to vote based solely on support or opposition of same-sex marriage – something I could not have in Texas anyway, it was a matter of standing up against a party platform that wanted to vilify and criminalize my very existence as a person.  It was a party that used my personal identity as a wedge issue to stir up hate among voters and promote inequality for an entire population of Americans.  Politics is totally different when it involves you, individually, at the most personal level.  It’s different when the target is painted on your own chest. 

At that point, the question became whether or not the Democratic Party had a place for me beyond its direct support of equality for all Americans and support of the GLBT community.  It was not an easy decision to make, but in the end, I found there were a lot of people like me who called themselves “Blue Dog” Democrats so I jumped in feet-first and put all that energy I had been wasting in the GOP to work in the 2008 Democratic primary on the Obama campaign.  I went to my first conventions at the precinct and senate district levels and served on the Resolutions Committee.  It was a lot of fun. 

Getting involved in a party that wants you and appreciates the work you do and the energy you bring to achieving its goals is an incredibly rewarding experience.  It was great to finally stop beating my head against the wall trying to make change that would never happen and get to work making a real difference in the community.  What was so remarkable was the fact that I could be accepted for those ideologies I agree with without being shunned for those things in the platform for which I might have some disagreements.  It was a stark difference from the non-negotiable litmus test of the Republican Party.  When I ran a real race for City Council in 2009, I garnered the support of 80% of the Democratic endorsing organizations in Houston. 

Even still, being in a high-profile position in the GLBT community today, there are occasionally some folks who claim I’m still a “closet Republican” or try to convince folks that I have somehow tried to keep my Republican past a secret.  I can’t help but wonder who some of them think they are kidding, but I do encounter people from time to time who legitimately wonder how it was I came to my evolution from Republican to Democrat.  I was asked that question frequently in 2009. 

We all evolve over time.  We learn from our experiences.  We even realize at times that we are wrong.  As a result, some of us grow more progressive, others grow more conservative for whatever reasons.  I have been a public servant for many years, and I have spent a great deal of time working in the community to make our world a better place.  My academic background is filled with studies of presidential politics, gay politics, public policy, public opinion and other aspects of the political world we live in.  All these things come together and have helped shape my ideology in ways that extend beyond just GLBT issues.  

For example, I find that user fees are often a successful tool in funding public programs and deserve strong consideration at all levels of government.  User fees are a distinctly Republican concept.  I believe (mostly through study and observing practical applications) that privatization of many core government functions is a really bad idea – a Democratic position.  Sometimes I tend to be particularly moderate, as with my view that we need to provide some level of free or reduced-cost healthcare to less fortunate and indigent citizens, but do so in a way that maximizes the return on a minimum investment.  That combines the compassion of Democratic principles with reduced cost, smaller government Republican principles.  I support a woman’s right to choose.  I support a strong national defense.  There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to public policy. 

I suppose that I might still have felt myself clinging to my Republican upbringing were it not for its massive shift toward social extremism – this idea that GLBT citizens have no place in society, that we should be locked up for the rest of our lives, or worse.  I was almost pleasantly surprised when local Republican activist Ed Hubbard published a blog post advocating that the Republican Party stop using the GLBT community as a punching bag to win elections.  It was a shockingly refreshing view to see coming from a recognizable Republican, but I then I realized that his entire argument was premised on ignoring one very important thing: the party platform.  

Remember earlier when I said it had been getting worse since 2004?  The anti-GLBT plank grew from chicken scratch tacked onto the end to a full page with top billing.  The GOP party platform simply does not accommodate any room for compassion for the GLBT community.  The Harris County GOP went so far as to run direct mail and live call campaigns to oust GLBT and GLBT-friendly precinct chairs a number of years ago in an effort to “purify” the party.  It is hatred toward an entire community of people that likes to pretend it isn’t hatred, and they will end up making the party so pure the convention can be held in a phone booth.  Perhaps if Mr. Hubbard feels so compassionately and wants the GOP to stop beating up on the GLBT community, he will work to change the party from within.  I wish him well in that effort. 

What it comes down to for me and where I am at this point in my life is that I am a policy wonk.  I want good government and well-reasoned, effective public policy without regard to which political party is behind it.  I reject the politics of demonizing populations of people, and I support equality for all Americans.  As long we have public policy that works and achieves what is best for citizens in my view that has developed from my experience, education and life’s work, I can live with it.  And I find that living with those things I believe in places me among my friends in the Democratic Party.

What I found particularly interesting was what appeared to me to be an increased emphasis on the Houston GLBT Political Caucus by a number of organizations and candidates that we haven’t really experienced in a while.  What was so interesting was not that they were on an anti-GLBT bent, but rather that the Caucus was singled out by name on a lot of campaign literature, in emails, and on the stump.  In some cases, I was tossed in the mix by name as well.

Of course, there were the usual suspects you would expect this from – the social right wingers who are still holding on to Anita Bryant’s 1977 talking points and Dave “I’m running because I’m not a lesbian” Wilson, but an incumbent HISD trustee decided to join in on the mix in a last-ditch desperate attempt to scare voters. 

The social right-wingers did us a favor by linking to the Caucus website and listing our complete slate of endorsements in an email.  Not only did we appreciate the web traffic, but it told anyone who didn’t care for their hateful trash exactly who they could go vote for.  We also landed top billing in the Houston Area Pastors Council voters guide along with Planned Parenthood.  Dave Wilson liked to point out that Mayor Annise Parker has the full support of the Caucus – as if it somehow makes her more lesbian than she already is.  HISD Trustee Manny Rodriguez handed out campaign literature that told voters his opponent, Ramiro Fonseca, was not fit to serve in office because he supported GLBT equality and had been endorsed by the Caucus.  He also went on Univision and asked “why an unmarried 54 year old man would want access to children.”

I am amazed that people still believe this is going to work in 2011 in Houston, Texas.

Manny Rodriguez got lucky and ended up unofficially winning by 24 votes.  I say unofficially because absentee ballots are still coming in and the results have not yet been certified.  Fonseca also has the ability to request a recount.  Needless to say, this one is not yet over.

My favorite highlight of the election cycle, though, was when District C candidate Randy Locke told the Dallas Voice his first official act after being elected would be to get me fired from my job.  I suppose he is still upset that I was too focused on my own campaign in 2009 to just drop everything and help him run a negative ad campaign against my friend Anne Clutterbuck.  It’s a platform of revenge, even if a Council member has zero ability to terminate a civil service employee.  Do we really want to elect someone so vengeful representing us?  I don’t think so, and it appears more than 96% of voters weren’t really interested in his platform, either.

All these attacks certainly kept me busy, and I’ve probably done more media in the last few days than in the last six months, even with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell being repealed.  It was a great opportunity to raise the profile of the Caucus and reinforce why it exists in the first place and motivate people to get involved.  So many people in the community look back at our progress over the last 40 years and don’t see that many of our struggles still exist, they just might not be in the middle of the radar screen.  No one was even paying attention to that HISD race until Rodriguez bought his ticket on the hate train.

To quote Sir Winston Churchill, “You have enemies?  Good.  That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”  We’ve stood up for many things and have become a political force to be reckoned with.  It’s no wonder these people try so desperately to tear us down.

Bitter, party of one.

One thing I did not expect in this election cycle was to see a candidate, who would otherwise be an ally to the community and happens to be a member of the Caucus, constantly attack and vilify the organization and the GLBT community publicly because he failed to earn our endorsement.  He showed a lot of promise early on, despite being universally understood as having zero chance of winning, and people liked him, but he allowed bitterness to get the best of him as the community chose to line up behind someone with a long-established history of support and results.

One thing I always tell people is politics is business – it’s not personal, so I am going to be generous and not post his name here.  It’s perfectly fine to rationally disagree on issues and still manage to get along at the end of the day, but as a candidate, you cannot just go out and trash on people and organizations and expect them to see that as “just business.”  You can’t go trash on people, lie about them, and then act like nothing ever happened when you speak to them.  That is not campaigning; it is negative personal attacks and deliberate deception that have no place in the political process. 

When I ran against C.O. Bradford in 2009, I had a number of people encouraging me to go hard-negative against him.  I chose not to because I wanted to run a respectful, professional campaign.  We raised some legitimate, reasonable negative criticisms in a balanced way that countered with what I had to offer as a candidate.  It introduced political discourse into the race that ultimately benefitted both me and Bradford in different ways, and in the end, he beat me fair and square and we walked away from that election on good terms with each other and have a great professional relationship today.    

It also doesn’t serve a candidate well to say the Caucus does not represent the GLBT community.  The Caucus may not directly represent all aspects of the community, but we do largely represent the community at the ballot box and in the political realm, and have done so since 1975.  Just ask my friends Ray Hill, Phyllis Frye and Annise Parker.  It does a candidate even further damage when they go out on the campaign trail and tell people they are “running against the Caucus,” spread lies about an endorsement process they failed to take seriously, and make personal attacks against the organization’s leadership simply because they failed to get even one single supporter to show up at the endorsement meeting. 

Allow me to offer another example from my 2009 race.  I had been an actively participating member of Harris County Tejano Democrats for about two years prior to seeking their endorsement, and believed I had a good relationship with its leadership.  Come endorsement time, the organization ended up endorsing my opponent, who at the time was not a member, and all but one member of their leadership committee voted against me.  I will freely admit that stung a bit and I was profoundly disappointed, but like any other candidate with a good plan, I moved on and didn’t look back.  No amount of complaining or whining was going to take us back in time and earn me the endorsement, so we go forward and do what we can to accomplish our goals in the ways for which we have control.  That, my friends, is business.

It was truly remarkable the efforts some candidates undertook to burn as many bridges as they possibly could as fast as they could, and the tally on election night was a direct reflection of the harsh impact such virulently negative campaigning had.  Why not offer up your own strengths and qualifications instead of attacking someone who isn’t even on the ballot?

I really do think it is unfortunate that politics gives good people the opportunity to do and say bad things, and the net result is long-term damage to their credibility.  I cannot imagine the community lining up behind those people in the future because the community will never know what to expect from them.  The community will always wonder what will be the next thing that will cause those people to turn on them or what will land them on the receiving end of lies and personal attacks.

The lesson to be learned here, I think, is that even in the world of electoral politics, there are standards of professionalism, whether you win or lose.  Here in Houston, the standards voters expect have led to the increasing rejection of personal attacks and the demonizing of the GLBT community.  We see that in the outrage expressed by people beyond the GLBT community, and in the fact that such efforts have continued to have a demonstrably negative effect on those who employ them.

After 18 years and almost 15,000 discharges Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is dead.

I have fought the fight for repeal since my own discharge on December 20, 2000.  I’ve been to Washington to lobby Congress on many occasions, led a delegation from Texas to the halls of Capitol Hill, written untold dozens of letters and made hundreds of phone calls to make this day a reality.  Certainly, there is cause for me to celebrate.

Nonetheless, I didn’t really feel like celebrating.  I stayed home, away from the one “official” celebration at a local bar.  I was moved to tears when the Senate passed repeal because I knew the president would sign it, and I knew the clock was ticking toward repeal at that very moment, but in the end it was more depressing than anything. 

In seeing repeal of DADT finally come, it serves as a stark reminder to me of what I lost.  It causes me to ponder what was and what could have been.  For the last eleven years I have mourned the loss of my hopes and dreams.  I may be older, more educated and reasonably successful in my civilian life, but that loss is something that never goes away, and I can’t help but wonder how many other victims of DADT are out there today feeling the same way I do.  How many people truly believed in duty, honor and country, but were forced to sacrifice their integrity every single day of their lives until it all came crashing down before their eyes?

I was one of the lucky ones – I was discharged in the controlled environment of being a college student.  I had four years to decide what else I wanted to do with my life.  So many others were shown the door with nowhere to go, no new job to fall back on, and a level of uncertainty in their lives never before experienced. 

Since I was discharged I have been asked countless times if I would rejoin should DADT be repealed.  It was always easy to say I had moved on with my life, and I have, but the truth is that on at least four or five occasions, I made a serious inquiry into what opportunities were available to go back into the military.  Unfortunately, I am now too old and too out of shape to go back.  Besides, I’m all grown up and I cannot ignore the obligations to the family I have now.  Brad may support my goals and dreams, but I can’t force him to drop his own life to become a military spouse.  I also have to consider the reality of what it would be like to be a 35 year-old 2^nd lieutenant and the fact that I would take roughly a 40% cut in pay from the job I have now. 

But even when I look at it from a rational perspective and accept that there are more negatives than positives to going back in, I always wonder what might have been.  I talk to friends from my days in the Corps at A&M who commissioned, and they are getting ready to pin on major.  It stings a little, because that could have been me, and I can’t help but be somewhat jealous of the military careers they have. 

Despite getting down on myself about all this from time to time, I do step back and realize that in the end I don’t have any regrets.  I have indeed moved on with my life, and I am very pleased with where I am today.  I know that coming out and being discharged changed my life in many ways that made me stronger and gave me the opportunity to make the world a better place than it was when I arrived in it.  In those eleven years I was given the chance to speak to thousands of people who were interested in my story and a couple dozen who were in the midst of the same struggles I experienced as a young man trying to come to terms with who I was and how it fit in with my military life.  I like to think that my sacrifices helped make someone else’s life just a little easier.  I like to think that my experience helped shape the way some people view the contributions of GLBT individuals to the world around them. 

So no, it wasn’t all in vain.  I dreamed of one day becoming a squadron commander in the Air Force because that is the level where you can make the most difference in the lives of people.  Two years after I was discharged I found myself serving as a squadron commander in the Texas Aggie Corps of Cadets.  I dreamed of a life serving our nation.  Four years after my discharge I found myself working for the U.S. Congress, and then the City of Houston, where I have served for the last seven years.  That doesn’t mean I don’t miss being the military; I suppose I will always miss it as long as I live, but it doesn’t consume my life or stand in the way of what I choose to accomplish as a member of society. 

I think today I can still be proud of all I have done and still look back upon my military service with fondness because it helped make me the man I am today, and I still ended up getting so much of what I wanted out of life.  I will always support our military, and I will continue to find ways to serve our great nation in any way I can.  The only difference is that I won’t be wearing a uniform when I do it.

Despite the arguments on both sides of the RLC debate, I think there is something that gets lost in all of this – the fact that the election was improper in the first place.  Federal Judge Lynn Hughes ruled the election invalid because it violated a provision of the City Charter that requires citizens wishing to repeal an ordinance to submit a petition to do so within 30 days of the passage of the ordinance (petitioners waited more than 5 years), but that fact seemed to me to get completely glossed over in all the legal and political wrangling and public debate over whether the RLCs should be on or off, if they were for safety or revenue, and if the City did or did not breach the contract with ATS.

The crucial point here is that the voters sent a very clear message — in 1913.

The City was chartered by the Congress of Texas, with a number of changes taking place in 1905 and 1911.  When the Home Rule statute was enacted in 1911, the power to amend the City Charter was placed squarely within the hands of the voters.  Two years later, on October 15, 1913, those voters chose to amend the Charter requiring any petition to repeal an ordinance be filed with the City Secretary within 30 days.  To be clear – the will of the voters said it couldn’t be done after 30 days.

And here we are today, a little over 97 years after that Charter amendment passed with throngs of voters strongly objecting to any notion that the election could even remotely be invalid.  A poster on an internet message board even went so far as to say Judge Hughes should “hang from the highest tree” for ruling the election invalid.  All we’ve heard since the ruling is, “the will of the voters … the will of the voters … the will of the voters.” ad nauseum, but I find myself asking a fundamental question:

When did the will of the voters get an expiration date?

Apparently, the will of the voters expires at some point less than 97 years after the vote is cast.  So what is the actual expiration date?  Is it 97 years? 75 years? 50? 10?  Hell, let’s make it a year – that way we can claim the election of some elected official we don’t like is no longer valid.  It will give us carte blanche to just remove people from office willy-nilly every time they upset voters.

Yes, I realize that seems a bit of an absurd argument to make, but the central point is that in a democratic government, especially when public policy is clearly expressed in laws approved and voted upon by voters, there is no expiration date.  The only way that provision of the City Charter can be ignored is if the provision itself is repealed, and the Charter does indeed provide a mechanism for amending the Charter.  In fact, the amendment process used to amend the Charter with Proposition 1 (Renew Houston) was also adopted by voters on October 15, 1913.

So which is it?  Did the will of the voters, as expressed in 1913, expire 97 years later, or didn’t it?  Whether the answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ it necessarily means that one of the two proposition elections is invalid.  If opponents of RLCs wish to argue that the election was valid, then their argument is that at some point after an election, the will of the voters will expire. 

If any Houstonian who voted to amend the Charter in 1913 were alive today, I believe they would strongly disagree with anyone who said their vote doesn’t count anymore.

We have a saying at A&M that from the outside you can’t understand it, and from the inside, you can’t explain it.  This is true on a lot of different levels, but I think it rings true at many schools rich with history and tradition.  The Corps of Cadets brings a unique perspective to those traditions and our University’s history that often does take a bit of explaining, however.  Appropriately, tomorrow happens to be FOW Sunday, the first day of Freshman Orientation Week, when new cadets will join the ranks of the Corps and will become part of 135 years of history and tradition.

There is a connection all of us former, current and future cadets have that ties us back to the first class that stepped foot on campus in 1876.  The history of the University, of the Corps, and the heroes of A&M are deeply cherished and revered in the Corps.  We find that out very early on as fish (freshman cadets) as we memorize “campos” – short for “campusologies” – that teach us the history and traditions of Texas A&M.

Something I mentioned in the Time Article was “soldier, statesman, knightly gentleman.”  It is taken from the inscription on the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross that stands in Academic Plaza, and is one of the campos we had to learn.

“Lawrence Sullivan Ross, 1838-1898, Soldier, Statesman, Knightly Gentleman; Brigadier General C.S.A., Governor of Texas, President of the A&M College.”

All cadets are expected to live up to a higher standard that is embodied by that phrase, and it should come as no surprise that so many cadets go on to public service of some form.  It is but one part of daily life as a cadet that prepares us to be successful leaders in the world beyond A&M. 

From the very beginning, we are taught to step out of our comfort zone and meet new people.  Cadets are required to introduce themselves to cadets of a higher rank, a ritual called “whipping out” from the act of whipping out your hand to shake hands with the other cadet.  We learn to say “Howdy” to everyone we meet to show courtesy and respect.  It is for this reason, I will always make a point to introduce myself to Aggies whenever I am at an event, official function, or even on the street.  You never know who you will meet.

One time I was at an event in Austin and saw a gentleman wearing an Aggie Ring, so I walked right on over and introduced myself.  It turned out to be Mayor Will Wynn ‘84.  Some of the non-Aggies I was there with were surprised I was so comfortable walking right up to say hello to the mayor.  It’s what we do.  A couple years later when I was still working in the funeral business, State Rep Joe Nixon ’78 noticed my Corps lapel pin at the services for his mother, stopped mid-sentence, and turned to me and introduced himself.  It’s what we do.  Of course, the formula is always name and class year.

Also mentioned in the Time article was the devotion we have to our fellow cadets and the Corps.  From the day we step foot onto the Quad, we know that our buddies (classmates) are the people who will marry us and bury us.  Just last year my buddy Julius, who was my squadron executive officer, was there for my wedding.  We are still fighting over who will get to fulfill the second half of that bargain first.

Again, that loyalty to our buddies and to the Corps is embodied by another campo, the inscription on the Memorial Student Center:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13.

The same inscription also appears on the War Memorial on Corps Plaza.

When I was in the Air Force prior to attending A&M, I learned the devotion to duty, honor and country.  It was, and still is, a guiding spirit of who I am as a person and is fundamental to the value I place on integrity, service to others and excellence in being a public servant.  The Corps took that spirit a step further with the campo relating to the advice given to A&M students in 1876 by Governor Richard Coke:

“…To the Students: Let your watchword be duty, and know no other talisman of success than labor.  Let honor be your guiding star in your dealings with your superiors, your fellows, with all.  Be as true to a trust reposed as the needle to the pole, stand by the right even to the sacrifice of life itself, and learn that death is preferable to dishonor.”

This goes back to the higher standard by which cadets are expected to live their lives.  It reinforces that sense of duty and integrity that helps define us as individuals and lends an added level of trust among our peers – it goes far beyond the mere memorization of words, even though not having it memorized does mean getting on your face to do pushups.  Pushups are just gentle motivation, right?

I could probably go on for days about the Corps experience, so I think I will wrap up by saying that being in the Corps was one of the most amazing, rewarding experiences of my life.  Whenever I get asked to talk about an experience that shaped my life and my decision making or leadership skills, I always talk about my time in the Corps.  Whenever I get asked what my most prized Aggie possessions are, I always say my Aggie Ring, Senior Boots, and the watch that was given to the Corps commander, W.T. Burns ’20 by the Ross Volunteer Company in April 1920, and subsequently given to me by Burns’ nephew in 2002.  I take it back to College Station most years to ask the current Corps commander to carry it during Final Review because it further reinforces the connection we have to those cadets who went before us.

We are the Aggies, the Aggies are we.  We’re from Texas AMC.

Every candidate knows at some point he or she has to pay for food.  Volunteers need snacks and water, donors want hors d’ouvres at house parties, political clubs host lunches, and sometimes the best place to meet with campaign staff and strategists is at House of Pies at 1:00 in the morning.  Needless to say, expenditures for food & beverage inevitably end up on campaign finance reports.

I am planning a more in-depth analysis of campaign finance reports in the coming days as the rest of the reports come in and I get them in a more user-friendly format from the City Secretary.  I had intended from the beginning to make a special point to look at food & beverage expenditures as part of evaluating the spending priorities of candidates, and it looks like this cycle is not going to disappoint.

It appears as though Eric Dick is in the lead by a long way.  When a first-time candidate drops a 228-page finance report, it’s going to get noticed.  I haven’t seen a report that long since Mayor Annise Parker’s 2009 campaign.  The differences between Dick’s and Parker’s reports, however, are quite significant.

Dick’s report contains more than 200 pages of Schedule G expenditures – campaign expenditures from personal funds.  Schedule G expenditures are common, especially when a candidate chooses to (or is forced to) self-fund the campaign.  Candidates can elect to seek reimbursement for Schedule G or not, but doing so requires indicating such on the report.

All said, Dick is leading the pack with a whopping 455 entries for food & beverage.  Keep in mind the reporting period is only 180 days long.  That’s an average of 2.5 expenditures per day at restaurants or bars, but what is so fascinating is that he is seeking reimbursement for very few of them, and by very few, I mean maybe a dozen or so.  A very large number of them also appear to be single-person meals, not food for a group or event.  It’s not really problematic, because he’s spending his own money, not his donor’s money, but it is still very strange to see a report like this.

I have not yet done the full math, but getting about 50 pages in put the food & beverage total at almost $4,000, so I’m going to go out on a limb and estimate his food & beverage expenses somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000, or about 20-25% of his total campaign expenditures.

Now that’s what I call getting out-Whataburgered. 

(To be fair, Whataburger only appears once on his report, but he does seem to be fond of Tex-Mex and Chinese)

For comparison, none of the other candidates whose reports are available come anywhere even remotely close to Dick’s food & beverage totals, and my guess would be none of them are all that intent on trying to catch up.

So far, I’ve learned being an activist means raising money (and lots of it … constantly), setting organizational policy, dealing with corporate compliance, managing facilities (i.e. fixing toilets), managing personalities, and somehow getting around to things like screening candidates and discussing community issues with elected officials.  It’s not all the glamour and fame some people think it’s supposed to be, but even still, all that stuff is the easy part.

Somewhere, in between the meetings with elected officials or the IRS, between the fundraising and rally cries, between the quick spot with Deborah Wrigley or a call to the Chronicle, comes the hard part.

I never knew Paul Broussard.  He was murdered before I graduated high school, years before I even got to Texas as fast as I could.  I didn’t know he was an Aggie like me until about a year ago.  I’ve never met his mother, Nancy, though I have spoken on the phone with her several times over the past couple of months. 

My job is to represent my organization, and our members chose to oppose the release of Paul’s murderer, Jon Buice.  I was personally very pleased with that decision because I happen to be rather strongly opposed to his release.  However, the will of the membership doesn’t write that letter to the parole board.  The will of the membership doesn’t allow me to comprehend the full effect what happened that night in 1991, and the will of the membership doesn’t help me grasp what Paul’s mother has endured for 20 years.  I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the past few months reflecting on what happened and reflecting on the way it shaped the GLBT community in Houston.

Underneath the evidence, the autopsy report, and the archived news footage lies the lingering damage Paul’s murder did to our community.  It is quite painful on a very personal level because so many of us have faced bias.  So many of us have feared potentially dangerous situations, and so many of us cannot help but be afraid we might be the next Paul Broussard. 

That seems a bit over the top, doesn’t it?  Not really, in my opinion.  I recall coming home from a trip to Vermont in 2009 and my husband was at the airport to pick me up.  I did what any ordinary person would do – I hugged him and gave him a quick kiss.  Not three seconds later the driver of a passing vehicle shouted “FAGGOTS!” as he drove by.  Just weeks ago a man was beaten with a baseball bat outside a bar in Montrose, and a transgender woman murdered and her body tossed behind a dumpster on the north side. 

That lingering fear is what has to be made real, has to be made quantifiable and tangible.  That pain has to be conveyed to a group of people who do not otherwise have any frame of reference or understanding of it, but I don’t just mean the parole board.  I have to do that for reporters and police officers when there is an assault or murder.  I have to do it for television viewers when pro-equality legislation comes up for a vote, and I have to do it for the everyday people who ask me why it is so important for me to fight for equality and justice. 

That, my friends, is the hard part.

The post script here is that the Board of Pardons and Paroles panel voted Friday to recommend Jon Buice be released from prison as early as October – only 19 years into a 45-year sentence.  I encourage you to take the time to write the Board of Pardons and Paroles to join me in expressing an objection to this recommendation.  Send correspondence to:

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Board of Pardons and Paroles
Post Office Box 13401, Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711-3401 

RE: Jon Christopher Buice, TDCJ ID #630496

First, there was an effort by conservative members of the Student Senate to pass a resolution to cut funding for the university’s GLBT Resource Center and give half of it to a “traditional family values center.”  Then there was a seminar that included an educational video presentation about sex that was, well, of a sexual nature.  Most recently, the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit (TTNS) was moved from A&M to University of Houston over unspecified threats that led the organizers to have some safety concerns.

These recent events certainly beg the question of whether or not A&M is as anti-GLBT as the media attention it is getting seems to imply.  Being an openly gay Aggie who was out in the Corps of Cadets, I like to think I have a unique perspective on how A&M has evovled over time on GLBT issues, and I have made efforts since I graduated to pay attention to A&M’s handling of these issues and engage University administration on them as necessary.  After President Obama signed the repealing legislation for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, I made a point to visit with Brigadier General Joe Ramirez ’79, the Commandant of Cadets to discuss how the Corps has historically dealt with GLBT cadets and how the repeal will affect the Corps in the future.  What might be surprising to many people is that General Ramirez is the third consecutive commandant to have a very accepting and welcoming attitude toward GLBT cadets – it’s not a new development.

Let’s break down some of the recent events after the jump.

I should begin by saying the only people who take the Student Senate seriously are student senators.  Student government has no authority to enforce any of the resolutions it passes.  It’s little more than a popularity contest that gives students an extra bullet on their resume.  Fine.  Whatever.  But when you have a university like A&M that is indeed known for being one of the most socially conservative in the state, it creates an opportunity to grab attention on issues like this.  GLBT issues ALWAYS get attention at A&M. 

The practical effect on the actual administration of the University of this resolution was that it did absolutely nothing.  The effect on A&M’s image was to reiterate the socially conservative reputation of the University because many people do not understand that the Student Senate does not actually represent the University or have any statutory authority.  The effect on the GLBT community was that we used it as ammunition to mobilize people to oppose efforts of State Representative Wayne Christian to pass legislation requiring public universities to have traditional family values centers and prohibiting use of state-owned buildings for use by GLBT resource centers.  At the end of the regular legislative session, Christian had failed in his mission.

Now on to sex ed … Did you know college students have sex?  The horror!!  In a place like College Station that is 100 miles from anything, and the only things to do are essentially go to bars, eat at chain restaurants, or leave town, I just don’t understand these folks who think it is reasonable to believe college students will not be having sex, should not be having sex, and should never even discuss the subject.  Now I’m not going to get into a discussion of human sexuality here, but the reality is that sexual education in this country is incredibly hetero-centric.  I don’t believe there is anything necessarily wrong with that, so long as there are opportunities available to the GLBT community to obtain homo-centric sexual education.

The seminar on campus was a privately-funded event that offered education on how to have a better, safer sexual experience for gay people.  Where is the harm in that?  Straight people have been learning about better, safer sexual experiences in public forums for a long time, but that didn’t stop a group of conservative activists from crashing the event, videotaping part of the presentation (which they called “porn”) and running off to the media with it.  Remember what I said about GLBT issues always getting attention?  GLBT issues + sex talk + “porn” = juicy scandal.  The Texas Aggie Conservatives (more on TAC later) used this event to start a war against the GLBT community at A&M.

That war heated up even more when they caught wind that TTNS was coming to A&M.  Some of the most prominent transgender activists in Texas graduated from A&M, and the campus is a great central location for events that draw attendees from across the state.  A&M should be proud to host such an event.  As I understand it, TAC began making threats of protesting the event, and things got so heated, it came down to the University being unable to guarantee the personal safety of TTNS attendees.  As an Aggie, I cannot begin to tell you how upset and embarrassed that makes me.

A&M has an image problem.

Texas A&M has been struggling with GLBT issues as long as I have been alive.  Older Ags likely remember Gay Student Services vs. Texas A&M, the case that first allowed GLBT groups on campus.  There were near riots on campus over that, but things did eventually get better, particularly when A&M took the monumental step of including sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy in the late 1990s.

When I first arrived at A&M, it had been named the 3rd least gay-friendly campus in the nation by the Princeton Review.  By the time I graduated, it had dropped to 12th on the list.  Today, I think it is 16th or 17th.  When I marched my Final Review in the Corps, I was the first openly gay cadet to do so.  Since then, at least 10 other openly gay cadets have done the same.  That is reflective of the progress the University has made over the years and the commitment it made toward diversity and acceptance of its student body.  On an aside, I might add that the Corps of Cadets has led the nation in being a progressive military institution, being the first of the Senior Military Colleges to allow women to enter its ranks, and the first to have an openly gay cadet complete its program.  I fear recent events may push A&M’s reputation backward.

The problem I really have here is the deafening silence of University Administration.  TAC grew out of Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) after the local chapter disbanded following some disputes with the state organization.  YCT was around when I was a student, and was then, and always was an attention-whoring hate group.  Their primary mission was always to spew hate for the GLBT community, and they often engaged in activities they knew would garner media attention.  As a result, A&M got a lot of very negative nation media attention.  The difference between then and now is that the University used to step forward and defend itself and create distance between it and YCT.

When I was a senior, I sat down with then-president of A&M Dr. Robert Gates to discuss how we could make A&M a more welcoming place for GLBT and other minority students.  He said the problem was not getting those students to apply for admission, or even getting them to stay once they enrolled.  It was getting them to actually enroll at the University because they were more likely to enroll somewhere else if they had a second option as a result of A&M’s reputation for being so socially conservative.  For reference, the last statistics I saw put the percentage of African-American students around 2% out of 46,000+ students, and estimates put the GLBT population even lower.

I have to agree with Dr. Gates – it makes absolute sense.  With that in mind, it is in the best interests of the University to do some damage control here.  It is one thing for the University to say it wants to respect and appreciate the First Amendment rights of its students so they can find their voice in this world, but it is something totally different to allow students to push the envelope so far that visitors to the campus actually fear for their safety.  There is something fundamentally wrong with that.  At what point does the University step forward and say hate is not an Aggie value?  At what point is enough enough?

A&M really is a wonderful university, and if you look beyond its reputation and what you see in the news, it can be a very rewarding, positive experience for GLBT students.  I wouldn’t trade my Aggie Ring for anything, and I do as much as I possibly can to support and give back to both the University and the Corps.  It is clear that giving back means calling on University administration to step up and defend its reputation and defend the GLBT Resource Center from the war being waged by a right-wing student hate group.

Time for me to get all overly-Aggie on everyone.

One thing I am extremely proud of is having been a member of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Corps of Cadets.  It is a wonderful program that produces excellent leaders for our state and nation (cadets are not required to join the military).  I can honestly say the Corps played an enormous role in making me the man I am today, and continues to have a positive impact on my life and career.  I would probably be a 2%er if it weren’t for being in the Corps.

For the past, well, forever, the Corps has tried to find new ways to recruit students to join.  This year I was pleasantly surprised to learn the Corps put up a number of billboards in the Bryan/College Station, Conroe and Somerville markets aimed at encouraging young men and women to join the Corps.  You can see several of them after jump.

It is definitely out of the box for the Corps (no pun intended, given the above image), and I like it.  I know a lot of folks get all hung up on rivalries and whatnot, but why not give a student the chance to learn they are better, stronger, tougher, and more capable than they ever thought they were?  It is an experience like no other that will no doubt shape the rest of their life.  My Corps buddies are the best friends I have in the world today, and the experiences we went through together created a bond that will last forever.  There are few experiences that can do that, and the Corps of Cadets is probably one of, if not THE best opportunity in Texas for young men and women to gain that experience.

Every Fall and Spring semester I visit A&M to talk to the new class of fish (first-year cadets) in my old outfit, Squadron 18.  I tell them about how the Corps changed my life for the better, and I always walk away proud of them for accepting the challenge.  One interesting thing about the fish I talk to every semester is none of them started college in the Corps – they chose to rise to the challenge after a semester or two, or in some cases, an extended absence.  The Corps has even had a few cadets in grad school and as old as their 30′s.  It’s never too late.

If you know someone who is looking for a challenge and looking to succeed at becoming a leader, please suggest they consider the Corps.  They won’t regret it – and they’ll get some amazing boots.