TIME: When Iceland installed Johanna Sigurdardottir as Prime Minister last February, newspapers around the globe printed variations of the same headline: ICELAND APPOINTS WORLD'S FIRST GAY LEADER. Everywhere, that is, except Iceland. The Icelandic media didn't mention Sigurdardottir's sexuality for days, and only then to point out that the foreign press had taken an interest in their new head of state — a 67-year-old former flight attendant turned politician whom voters had consistently rated Iceland's most trustworthy politician. Sure, she was gay and had entered a civil partnership with another woman in 2002. But Icelanders hardly seemed to notice. "The media silence echoed the sentiment of the public. Nobody cared about her sexual orientation," says Margret Bjornsdottir, the director of the Institute for Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland. "Being gay is a nonissue here. It's considered unremarkable."
Buoyed by liberal attitudes such as those, politicians across Western Europe are stepping out of the closet and into their country's highest political offices. Eleven openly gay men and women now serve in the British Parliament, including two in the Cabinet. Last June, Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Frédéric Mitterrand, a gay television presenter, to the post of Minister of Culture. Paris' Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, tipped by some to contest the 2012 presidential race, is gay. And Guido Westerwelle, chairman of Germany's Free Democratic Party, has just become his country's Foreign Minister, joining a gay élite that includes the mayors of Berlin and Hamburg, Germany's two largest cities. Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's mayor, says coming out ahead of the 2001 mayoral race while under pressure from tabloids strengthened his campaign. "My confession might have contributed to my popularity," he says. "Many people appreciate honesty."
That's a far cry from the climate in most of the U.S., where — despite the recent election of Annise Parker, a gay woman, as mayor of Houston, America's fourth largest city — honesty can still end a gay politician's career. Openly gay politicians such as San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk began winning seats in U.S. cities with large gay populations in the 1970s. Progress has since slowed, says David Rayside, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He believes that the relative strength of incumbency in the U.S. creates a barrier to the corridors of power, as does "the strength of religious conservatives." Of the 511,000 elected offices in the U.S. — from local school boards way up to President — openly gay men and women occupy just 450 of them, according to the U.S.-based Victory Fund, an organization that offers financial support to gay political candidates. No openly gay person has ever sat in the Senate, and only three hold seats in the House of Representatives.
The gap between the U.S. and Europe doesn't just exist at the top: 49% of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center in 2007 believed that society should "accept" homosexuality. Contrast that with attitudes in Europe where more than 80% of French, Germans and Spaniards had such a view. Only Catholic and conservative Poles felt as uncomfortable with the idea as Americans. Denis Dison, a spokesman for the Victory Fund, says those attitudes can make it difficult for gay people to campaign — let alone obtain office. "In places where the climate isn't friendly, it's hard for them to even go into a town hall meeting or public forum because they get such nasty questions." The European Difference >>> William Lee Adams | Monday, January 18, 2010
