THE 2018 INSIDER OUT 100 NJ’S LGBT POWERLIST WE'VE COME A LONG WAY! Message from the Editor 2018 LGBT POWER Welcome to InsiderNJ’s OUT 100 Power List, a first-of-its kind-tribute to influential LGBTs in New Jersey politics. This list was a reader’s idea. My editor Max Pizarro and my General Manager Pete Oneglia green-lighted the idea so long as I promised to make it amazing. These Power Lists mean a lot to people. Making it amazing seems like the least I could do given this opportunity. P.O. Box 66 Verona, NJ 07044
[email protected] www.InsiderNJ.com WE’VE COME A LONG WAY, HAVEN’T WE? When I acquired HIV as a teenager back in 1992, you’d be hard pressed to name a single politically influential LGBT person anywhere in America, let alone 100 from a single state! Nobody was talking about gay marriage. There were no workplace protections back then, no gays in the military. What Max Pizarro we did have was a hostile government and an equally hostile Catholic Church driving our nation’s Editor-in-Chief AIDS policy. Which might explain why the life-saving AIDS “cocktail” was still years away, something
[email protected] I blessedly wouldn’t need until 1998. Many listed below played a huge role taming the AIDS crisis and then delivering a raft of pro-LGBT laws in its wake. This list also includes the next generation of LGBTs already making their mark on the New Jersey political landscape. They’ve snatched the baton in a purposeful manner befitting a generation raised to dream bigger than mine ever could.