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POLITICAL PROFILE
I
n Tony Kushner’s gay fantasia, Angels in
America, an angel describes heaven as a
“City Much Like San Francisco. House
upon house depended from Hillside, From
Crest down to Dockside, The green Mirror
ing Bay...”
For gay men and lesbians worldwide, the City
by the Bay has indeed been their heaven on earth:
a place of refuge from an oppressive Bible Belt or
an entrenched East Coast establishment. With its
cable-carred peaks, pink Victorians and bustling
basin, San Francisco’s physical beauty alone is
enough to attract residents of all stripes. But clearly
it is not only the landscape that draws so many
queer settlers, it is the city’s historical— if not
mythical— significance to our community: Harvey
Milk. The Castro. Armistead Maupin and his Tales
o f the City. For generations, San Francisco has
equaled liberation for gay men, lesbians and
transgendered people.
“San Francisco is the most beautiful city in the
world. It’s diverse and cultural, open-minded and
physically very beautiful. It is the place I’ve al
ways wanted to live,” says Roberta Achtenberg in
a crisp, indisputable tone that leaves you wonder
ing whether she authored the angel’s words her
self. (Kushner and Achtenberg actually share many
commonalties: They are Jewish, gay, self-defined
progressives, and were named The Advocate's
Man and Woman of the Year in 1993.)
Missing from the city’s rich queer heritage,
however, is the presence of an openly gay or
lesbian mayor. That could change this November,
when San Francisco voters go to the polls to choose
a mayor, a prize the 45-year-old Achtenberg, who
is lesbian, has set her eager eyes upon.
“I want to be mayor not only of the gay and
lesbian community, but of all of this city’ s [700,000]
residents,” says the longtime civil rights attorney.
Who exactly is Roberta Achtenberg? Break it
down on paper, and we can tell you that she is the
long-term partner of former San Francisco munici
pal courtjustice Mary Morgan (who was the nation’s
first openly lesbian judge) and the mother of a son,
Benjamin (conceived through alternative insemi
nation, birthed by Morgan, and who, unlike Presi
dent Bill Clinton’s kid, attends public school). The
trio live in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood.
Like many politicians who feel the need to tout
at least a few hard-knocks credentials, Achtenberg
declares in a prepared bio that she is the child of
“immigrant parents who owned a small grocery
store.” Her father died when she was just 18; her
mother passed away when Achtenberg was 26; her
brother became a quadriplegic following a car
accident
Achtenberg is a lifelong Californian who mar
ried at 21, realized she was a lesbian at 25, and
became dean of the New College of California
School of Law at the age of 28. She later left the
post (and got divorced) and became director of the
San Francisco-based Lesbian Rights Project an
organization that worked on myriad sexual orien
Running uphill
Roberta Achtenberg strives to make history, again—this time
in taking on the tough San Francisco mayoral race
▼
by Inga Sorensen
tation discrimination cases and evolved into the
National Center for Lesbian Rights.
In 1988 she unsuccessfully ran for a state As
sembly seat but she was elected to the San Fran
cisco Board of Supervisors in 1990. Yet it wasn’t
until 1993, when Clinton asked her to become the
assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal
Opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development that Achtenberg first en
tered the national consciousness.
For that, she can largely thank U.S. Sen. Jesse
Helms (R-N.C.), the nasty-tongued nemesis of gay
men and lesbians every
w here, who pugna
ciously
labeled
Achtenberg a “damn les
bian” during rigorous
confirmation hearings.
Short and not so sweet,
that line— which has
found its way onto many
a T-shirt—will undoubt
edly go down in our lav
ender archives as one of
the more memorable de
scriptions lodged against
a queer official.
Despite Helms’ rant
ing, Achtenberg was con
firmed, making her the
highest-ranking openly
gay woman or man ever
to serve in any presiden
tial administration. When
we asked Achtenberg
what she thinks of Helms
Roberta Achtenberg
today, she answ ers
sharply: “Not much.” After pausing a moment, she
adds, “You know what? I beat him. He is a sinister
force and I was able to beat him. That gives me
satisfaction.”
After two years, Achtenberg resigned from her
HUD post this past April. (Sen. Lauch Faircloth,
another North Carolina Republican, reportedly
issued a news release after Achtenberg submitted
her resignation saying that Clinton requested she
step down. She has denied that charge.)
“The weather in Washington was awful. Dread
ful,” says Achtenberg, who seems happy to be
back on her own turf where the air is “cool and
fresh.”
“Washington was fun, but quite frankly, power
goes to people’s heads, and two years is about as
long as any normal person can stay there without
getting swept away in that,” she says. “Members of
Congress can be vicious. It’s a real hot house.”
Achtenberg is no-nonsense, through and
through. When I asked her whether she receives
letters from gay and lesbian youth, she says yes,
adding that some of those missives are from young
people who are grappling with difficult issues. “In
those cases,” she says dryly, “I refer them to the
appropriate agency.” She talks of restructuring
city government from top to bottom, and without a
hint of irony says she is tired of “career politicians
running the show.”
This tough-cookie atti
tude is undoubtedly a vir
tue— if not a necessity—
given the bruiser political
battle Achtenberg has cho
sen for herself.
When she jumped into
the mayoral race in April,
Achtenberg transformed an
already hot race into a siz-
zler. In addition to
Achtenberg, mayoral can
didates include incumbent
mayor Frank Jordan and Su
pervisor Angela Alioto,
who is considered a friend
of the gay and lesbian com
munity and is the daughter
of a former San Francisco
mayor.
And then there is Willie
Brown, who has been state
Assembly speaker for more
than a decade and is con
sidered California’s most powerful Democrat.
Brown, a liberal attorney, is also hailed as one of
the foremost African American leaders in the na
tion and has many gay supporters, including long
time lesbian activist Pat Norman, who is co-chair
of the Lesbian and Gay Committee to Elect Willie
Brown. Brown is also backed by Matthew
Rothschild, a gay man who heads the city’s Demo
cratic Party, and pioneering AIDS researcher
Marcus Conant, who has credited Brown with
securing $100 million for AIDS treatment and
research. Carole Migden, an openly lesbian city
supervisor, has endorsed Brown, as has one of the
city’s gay and lesbian democratic clubs.
To put it simply, the gay and lesbian vote—
which roughly represents a significant 15 percent
of the electorate— is no easy grab for Achtenberg.
“There isn’t a lot o f excitem ent about
[Achtenberg’s] candidacy right now. Maybe that
will change as we get closer to the election,” says
Mike Salinas, editor of the weekly gay and lesbian
newspaper Boy Area Reporter. (In San Francisco,
if no one receives a majority of votes, the top two
candidates face each other in a run-off; many
expect a run-off between Jordan and either Brown
or Achtenberg.)
Some political observers have questioned
whether Achtenberg is a job-hopper who is most
interested in her own r^suml, while others have
questioned her effectiveness in Washington, D.C.
Asked whether there was any dissention gener
ated by her unexpected jump into the mayoral race,
Achtenberg curtly replies: “Absolutely not.”
She will tell you she is “the only progressive in
the race,” and she has been hailed by supporters as
someone who is paradoxically an insider and out
sider all at once: someone who can get the job done
without being one of the bad good ol’ boys. (The
San F rancisco E xam iner is trumpeting
Achtenberg’s effort, describing her as “whip smart,”
“fresh,” and “an independent candidate who does
her own thinking and makes her own decisions.”)
Granted, to be involved in government today
and advocate for housing integration and job
training for low-income citizens—as Achtenberg
did at HUD—could, in fact, give a politician the
all-important appearance of being an outsider, and
if she continues positioning herself as such, she
could pull off a victory.
The candidate also continues to line up an
impressive cadre of supporters. Her campaign re
cently created a national advisory board featuring
a host of glamor gays including Tony Kushner,
Greta Cammermeyer, Larry Kramer and Harvey
Fierstein, and local fund-raising committees are
cropping up across the country, including here in
Portland. (According to campaign finance reports
filed on July 31, Achtenberg had raised nearly
$190,000—a notable amount given her late entry
into the race; Brown reported $163,306, and Jor
dan pulled in $500,000 during the first six months
of 1995.)
True to her Golden State roots, Achtenberg
looks to the water when she has a few moments to
relax. “Mary and I go scuba diving, and we love to
windsurf,” she says. (You won’t find the couple
windsurfing with yahoos in the bay, however.)
“There’s a reservoir about a half-hour away that
we go to, and we also try to get to a wonderful lake
in the Sierras.”
When asked what she’ll do if she loses the
mayoral race, she answers— in characteristic fash
ion— “That’s not going to happen.”
Roberta Achtenberg w ill be the keynote speaker
at the Oregon Gay and Lesbian Law
A ssociation's Fifth Annual D inner on Sept. 16.
Tickets are $40 and can be purchased by
calling 231-9340 or 248-1063.
@«886 88 B 8
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