🚀 go-pugleaf

Good news for LGBpeople in Massachusetts.  The minority leader of the state
Senate, Repulican senator David Locke of Wellesley, an outspoken and crude
homophobe, went down to defeat, after leading Republican senators for
decades on Beacon Hill.  A woman & Democrat, Cheryl A. Jacques of Needham,
beat him.

Locke became especially notorious for his stupid sarcasm and nbame-calling
during senate debates and hearings and before the press over the gay rights
bill and other legislation affecting LGBpeople.  His vulgar and infantile
language and behavior really marked him out as a "bozo," a malicious clown,
and caused me to wonder how he'd ever risen to pre-eminence about bay state
Republicans, nevermind winning constant re-election from posh, blue-blooded
Wellesley Hills, one of the richest and most snobbish communities in Massa-
chusetts.  (Then again, upper class people have always been more entrenched
in their homophobia than those of other classes, at least in my experience.
Some people are misled by the appearance of "tolerance" which the wealthy's
predilection for homosexual servants and lesbian dalliances creates.)

I guess the GOP was really hard up before Weld arrived on the scene.

Governor Weld also lost his veto club "after voters stripped him of his power
base in the state Senate," according to today's Boston Globe.  All 5 defeated
senators were Republicans, who were all beaten by Democrats: the victors
included 3 women (I assume "Marian" is a "female," "Marion" a "male," name):

	Cheryl A. Jacques (D-Needham)
	Therese Murray (D-Plymounth)
	Marian Walsh (D-West Roxbury)

Diane Wilkerson (D-Boston), legal counsel and vice president of Boston's NAACP,
became the first Black women elected to Massachusetts' Senate, beating her
opponent, Republican Arthur Williams, by a margin of 6-to-1.  Her district
includes the Fenway and part of the South End, 2 areas of Boston that have
perhaps the city's largest LGB populations.

I think another one of the losers, Edward P. Kirby (R-Whitman), was also a
promiment Senate homophobe and outspoken opponent of legislation benefitting
LGBpeople.

The Senate, rather than the House, had been I believe the scene of the most out-
rageous outbursts of homophobia in the state legislature over the past decade.


Yay!
Ron