In a 2008 Zogby poll, sixty percent of US voters said they’d support a gay candidate for President of the United States. Seventy-one percent said they’d support an openly-gay cabinet secretary. It looks like the latter has become a strong possibility. Via an email from Karen Ocamb, we learn that Atlantic writer Marc Ambinder has picked up on the potential appointment:
Labor activist Mary Beth Maxwell has emerged as a serious candidate for Secretary of Labor, Democratic and transition officials confirm. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Maxwell, who’d be the first openly gay cabinet secretary, is being vetted for the job, along with Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Of the three, Sebelius has the inside track and the closest relationship with Obama. Sebelius has also been mentioned as a potential pick for Secretary of Education.
The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman also seems onboard with the appointment of Ms Maxwell:
For the rainbow cabinet of the nation’s first African American president, Mary Beth Maxwell is the perfect labor secretary you’ve probably never heard of: a gay woman, community organizer and labor leader with an adopted African American son. And this founding executive director of American Rights at Work is about to get the full-court press.
Weisman also points to the late-to-the-party-but-we’d-like-a-piece-of-that-action gusto we’ve come to expect from the Human Rights Campaign:
Today, the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign will release a letter to President-elect Barack Obama strongly backing her. The catch: The group last week backed Rep. Linda Sanchez for the post.
“You would have received our letter in support of Representative Sánchez’s candidacy for Secretary of Labor last week,” HRC President Joe Solmonese writes, asking for a mulligan.
“While we remain supportive of Representative Sánchez’s candidacy, it has come to our attention that Mary Beth Maxwell is also being considered for this crucial position. Given Ms. Maxwell’s long history of leadership on labor issues, HRC is pleased to also endorse Mary Beth Maxwell for Secretary of Labor.”
Given the rabid rancorousness that ensues among the radical religious right anytime a queer person is nominated for any position from dog catcher to ambassador, this could get interesting. Over at Reverend Donald Wildmon’s make-believe Christianist news site, One News Now, ace reporter Charlie Butts (no, I didn’t make that up) points out that the Alliance Defense Fund, the radical religious right’s legal commando force, has Capitol Hill’s ‘leftist agenda’ in the crosshairs. ADF’s Mike Johnson says:
“Many of [coming into office] said, including the new president and vice president, that they were committed to pursuing damaging policy changes that will harm Americans,” he explains. “We’re ready to go to court, at the Alliance Defense Fund, to fight the vast number of these leftist policies that have been promised – and we expect they will make good on those promises.”
True to form, these so-called leftist policies are almost exclusively queer-positive measures. Their reaction to the potential appointment of a lesbian, with an adopted African-American son, to a cabinet-level position should be nothing less than hysterical.
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