Black, White or Gay?

A terrific piece in the Los Angeles Times about the mayoral race in Atlanta, which pits a white woman–Mary Norwood–against an African American man–Kasim Reed. While the run-off was expected to come down to a question of race and voter-turnout, the new dynamic is the gay vote.

The support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community 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 LGBT voters here has become particularly intense since the Nov. 3 general election, when Councilwoman Mary Norwood and former state Sen. Kasim Reed earned spots in the mayoral runoff.

“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, the state’s largest gay rights group.

More at NLGJA Blog!