From Fear to Fearless

From Fear to Fearless: Tom Ammiano, state assemblyman from San Francisco, frank in his homosexuality and even more frank in his leftist pursuits, quite possibly the most genuine outlier to ever serve in the California Legislature. The Liberation of Tom Ammiano They were gathered on a summer California to those nationwide. His State (he does standup, by the way) if day in Sacramento in one of those research had found that Three Strikes not for his ability, time and again, to august hearing rooms on the first floor had absolutely nothing to do with any get laws passed that actually change of the old Capitol, each one playing a downturn in crime. We were just as people’s lives. part all too familiar by now. safe—or just as imperiled—with or Think of the gadfly who speaks at There was the father testifying without it. every city council meeting, an irritant once again about the daughter And then there was the politician that the powerful suffer for a maximum murdered more than twenty years in the middle, a wispy looking man of three minutes so they can go home ago by a repeat felon fresh on the almost lost in his chino suit, whose believing that democracy actually streets, the crime that had led to the calm presence chairing the hearing occurs. In the case of Ammiano, the Three Strikes law. There was the did nothing to call attention to itself, irritant, after so many years occupying well-dressed lobbyist advocating for unless of course you count the tiny the fringe, has become the powerful a tough-on-crime approach, waiting jewel that sparkled from his left ear or without losing his gadfly creds. Map to tell the legislative committee that the peculiar dialect—Italian queen, the political landscape of California, its Three Strikes was the best deterrent he calls it—straight (or not so straight) divides and undulations, and locate the we could hope for. If it occasionally from the Jersey Shore. That would be Democrats and their super majority went too far and banished non-violent Tom Ammiano, state assemblyman along the Southern California coast offenders to life in prison, that was a from San Francisco, frank in his and big cities and the Republicans small price to pay for our safety—and homosexuality and even more frank taking cover in their beleaguered you better believe that we were safer in his leftist pursuits, quite possibly outposts in the hinterlands and then because of the law. the most genuine outlier to ever serve jump across the Bay Bridge and land There was the Stanford professor in the California Legislature. He in the loophole that is San Francisco. who had actually studied the data might be considered a mere comedic To the left of everyone else, even and compared the crime rates in sideshow to the affairs of the Golden fellow San Franciscan and ultra-liberal State Sen. Mark Leno, you’ll find lesbians from working in California’s responded by taking his measures Tom Ammiano representing the 17th public schools. Ammiano teamed to the ballot. It was Ammiano who District, his own nimble party of one. up with Milk and Hank Wilson and cajoled San Francisco to become Critics reaching for an adjective mobilized the “No On 6” opposition the first city in the nation to require to contain him decide that Socialist under the banner “Come out! Come businesses to provide universal health isn’t good enough. Only Marxist out! Wherever you are.” Such was the care for employees and their families, will do. But even they marvel at his initiative’s sound defeat that it even including domestic partners. effectiveness as a lawmaker, how he’s lost in Briggs’ own backyard. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger been able to operate so defiantly in School board trustees made the made the mistake in 2009. He showed corridors of power that almost always mistake a decade later. That’s when up at a Democratic fundraiser at the compel a politician to water down Ammiano won a seat on the board Fairmont Hotel only to meet the ire of his or her beliefs. If Harvey Milk was and then became president. Soon, Ammiano, who called his appearance a pioneer by dint of being the first a “cheap publicity stunt.” As Willie homosexual ever elected to public Brown introduced Schwarzenegger office in the U.S., then Ammiano to the crowd, Ammiano marched is the successor who doesn’t simply out, telling the governor to “kiss my carry the torch but actually gets the gay ass.” Four days later, the governor hard work done. vetoed Ammiano’s simple financing Pick up the New York Times on bill for the port of San Francisco, a summer day in 2012 and turn to a measure that had passed the the editorial page and find the paper- legislature without a single “No” vote. of-record lauding Ammiano for his In a memo to Ammiano boldness as the author of the “Trust explaining the veto, Schwarzenegger Act”—the legislation that seeks to halt Pick up the New York Times on left a message that could be gleaned the deportation of undocumented a summer day in 2012 and turn by reading the first letter of each immigrants jailed for traffic violations to the editorial page and find the sentence down the page: “I F--- You.” and other minor offenses. “It deserves paper-of-record lauding Ammiano A patient man, Ammiano waited until to become law,” the Times opines. for his boldness as the author of Arnold left office and then basked in So write off Ammiano—and the the “Trust Act” —the legislation the glow of Gov. Brown’s signature on beauty is he lets you pretend that you that seeks to halt the deportation his bill to finance tens of millions of can—at your own risk. of undocumented immigrants dollars in improvements to the port— The superintendent of San jailed for traffic violations and just in time for the 2013 World Cup Francisco Unified School District other minor offenses. yacht race. Schwarzenegger would made the mistake in 1975. Ammiano later recount the incident in his was teaching elementary school in the memoir, “Total Recall,” confirming Mission District when he became the thanks to his efforts, the curriculum that his veto was sweet payback for first gay teacher to publicly emerge for every student in San Francisco Ammiano’s cheeky behavior. from the closet, organizing the nation’s Unified included issues surrounding “I’ve never been interested in first-ever Gay Teachers Caucus. It was gays and lesbians. standing in the middle,” the seventy- Ammiano who led the movement to Willie Brown made the mistake in one-year-old Ammiano explains. include gays in the school district’s the 1990s. As mayor of San Francisco, “Sure it’s comfortable, but life’s too anti-discrimination policy. he packed the board of supervisors short for the middle. Of course, in John Briggs, the anti-gay rights with loyalists, writing off Supervisor California, our middle isn’t like the legislator from Orange County, made Ammiano as one of the “pantywaists.” rest of America’s middle. Our center the mistake in 1977. His Proposition Ammiano’s retort to Brown was classic is ahead of their center. But it’s still 6 initiative, inspired by Anita Bryant’s Ammiano. “It’s Mr. Pantywaist to the center. We have plenty of good “Save Our Children” campaign you.” If Brown took special glee in liberals in Sacramento, but sometimes in Florida, sought to ban gays and vetoing Ammiano’s bills, Ammiano they don’t act on their beliefs. They see the real estate lobby or the tough- sauce,” Ammiano said. Her hair was If he was different in a theatrical on-crime lobby, and some of them snow white and she wore granny way, no one cared to give a name to lose their courage. glasses and clunky black shoes, and it. When you dress up in high heels “So progressive issues move in a she would sing at the drop of a hat, and women’s clothes and do a little glacial way toward the squishy middle. he recalls. She came from Naples pantomime of a striptease, and the That’s a place that drives me crazy. and taught herself English, though family loves it, what do you ask? When I like being on the edge. It comes she never lost the Italian spicing. She you speak with the squeaky voice natural to me. I’m an old queer and a lived to be 100, and her presence nature has given you and your hips leftie who’s got nothing left to fear.” anchored his life. “We needed her,” do the meanest mambo on the block, The free flight of Tom Ammiano, he said. “Because there was a lot of who do you ask? When there’s an older his liberation from home and blue turbulence under the surface.” cousin in the family who’s gay and collar ethnic roots, is a story less Questions of identity—old world/ your brother and sisters gab about him about embracing sexual identity over dinner—your ears pick up “light than about surmounting fear. It in the loafers” and your eyes catch starts with the fear of parents whose their limp-handed mock—how do you third child is born in the wake of ever tell them, “That’s me?” the bombing of Pearl Harbor and As happens in childhood, identity is raised in Montclair, New Jersey, played out in make believe—games a town split between upper and of cowboys and Indians in which he lower with upper boasting the most was always the cowboy.

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