m******8
发帖数: 2153 | 1 The mayor of Redondo Beach, California is planning to run for a seat in US
Congress, which would make him the first openly gay Republican voted into
the House.
Mike Gin, 48, has been a councilman in Redondo Beach for eight years and is
in his second term as mayor.
There are no openly gay Republicans currently serving on Capitol Hill, but
he would be the fifth openly gay member of the House. According to the Asian
Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, Gin would be the
first out gay Asian American to run for Congress.
“Certainly, being a gay man has always been who I’ve been, and for me, it
never really has been a factor or reason for doing things,” Mr Gin told the
Bay Area Reporter. “It is a part of me just as much as being a Chinese
American.”
Mr Gin and his husband, Christopher Kreidel, were part of the 18,000 gay
people married after the California Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that same-
sex marriages were legal, but before the Proposition 8 vote overturned the
decision.
“Christopher is the first person I asked before I ever started exploring
this race. He has been with me since 1995 when I first got elected to the
city council,” said Gin. “He is very supportive of me in everything that I
do.”
Mr Gin is a member of Log Cabin Republicans, an organisation that advocates
for gay and lesbian equality in the Republican Party.
The openly gay minister of state for police in the UK, Nick Herbert, gave a
speech at a Log Cabin Republican annual dinner in Washington in September
last year.
He said: “I should say, especially here, to a conservative audience who
like me may share some hesitation about the value of laws, who may worry
about the infringement of freedom and the trespass on the exercise of
individual conscience that social legislation of this kind can represent.
“I worry about these things. But I have come to the view that these laws
have been incredibly important in our country, in order that people can be
equal and in order to prevent discrimination against people.”
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