RICHARD FAUSSET
December 2, 2009
ATLANTA: A neck-and-neck mayoral run-off pitting a black man against a white woman has spurred intense discussions about race and politics in the most important city in the southern US.
But recently, the two campaigns turned their attention to a demographic beyond race that may have ultimately swayed yesterday's election: the gay vote.
The support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population has been a coveted political prize for some time in Atlanta, a bastion of live-and-let-live progressivism in the heart of the more censorious Bible Belt.
But the wooing of these voters in Atlanta has become particularly intense since the November general election, when Councillor Mary Norwood and the former state senator Kasim Reed earned spots in the mayoral run-off.
''I cannot recall a mayor's race when there's been so much attention placed on the gay and lesbian vote,'' said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality. ''All of a sudden, overnight, it's like an unbelievable push [to prove] who's gayer,'' added Glen Paul Freedman, chief of staff for the city council president, Lisa Borders....
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