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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Annise Parker now co-chair of "Mayors for the Freedom to Marry," Austin's Leffingwell joins

This post originally appeared on Houstini.com on January 20, 2011

Lee Leffingwell
Houstini reported yesterday that Houston's Mayor Annise Parker was scheduled to appear at the "Mayors for the Freedom to Marry" press conference in Washington D.C., and that she was the only Texas mayor to participate. This morning we found out that Parker, along with New York's Michael Bloomberg and L.A.'s Antonio Villaraigosa, is serving as co-chair for the effort. Additionally Austin's Mayor Lee Leffingwell has joined the effort.
So that makes 2 of Texas' 1,215 mayors with the bravery to stand up for what's right, leaving the citizens of 1,213 citizens with the task of persuading their mayors. In Dallas Daniel Cates of GetEqual has started an online petition encouraging Mayor Mike Rawlings to sign on which currently has 216 signatories. The Dallas Voice reports that Rawlings claims to personally support marriage equality, despite his unwillingness to join "Mayors for the Freedom to Marry:"
“This one obviously was very difficult for me, because I personally believe in the rights of the gay community to marry,” Rawlings said Thursday... “I think this [same-sex marriage] is way overdue and we need to get on with it, but that’s my personal belief, and when I start to speak on behalf of the city of Dallas … I’ve got to be thoughtful about how I use that office and what I want to impact, and that’s why I decided to stay away from endorsing and signing letters like that.”
Rawlings' chief of staff, Paula Blackmon, told the Voice "the mayor does not plan to publicly support any social issues but would rather focus on the policy issues that impact Dallas,” adding “we have not signed onto other similar requests.”

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