Europe's Gay Leaders: Out at The Top

It helps that Europe's liberal laws — 18 European countries allow gay marriage or same-sex civil unions, and gay couples in nine countries can adopt children — have largely normalized perceptions of gays. Christophe Girard, the deputy mayor of Paris, believes the legal framework for gay partnerships has "forced respect." (Girard is in a civil partnership with his partner of 13 years and has two children). "Gays are no longer just seen as partiers, but also as parents," he says. Paris, of course, is not rural France. But even in Barsac, a village of 2,200 people in the country's southwest, gay leaders have seen progress. Philippe Meynard, the mayor for five years, says his own visibility has influenced local attitudes. "People have become aware that a gay person isn't a caricature," he says. People now judge him primarily by his work building parking lots and beautifying the village. (See a timeline of gay marriage.)

Demographic shifts may also play a part. For a growing number of people in a continent grappling with how to assimilate migrants, the gay community can seem less threatening than recent arrivals from the Muslim world. "It's creepy," says Rayside of the University of Toronto, "but sexual minorities are seen as a safer and more respectable minority because they know what 'Britishness' or 'Dutchness' is." A 2008 poll, for example, found that while only 27% of Dutch voters would approve of a Muslim Prime Minister, 78% would approve of a homosexual in the same role. (See pictures of Muslims in America.)

The Road Ahead
For its part, Britain's Conservative Party has come a long way since Section 28, which the Labour government repealed in 2003. David Cameron, the Tory leader, apologized for the law at a gay-pride event last June. In October, the Conservatives even organized an official "gay night" at their annual party conference. Among gay activists, debate still rages over whether leaders who have not gone public with their sexuality should do so. Girard, the deputy mayor of Paris, knows several elected officials who keep their sexuality private. "By not accepting their homosexuality publicly, closeted politicians are holding back progress," he says. So long as they remain hidden, he argues, gay leaders will remain an oddity. "I don't mean that they have to wave a banner, but just be calm and confident about it." (Read: "Nasty No More? Britain's Tories Reach Out to Gays.")

Wowereit, Berlin's mayor, is all of those things: he regularly appears with his neurosurgeon boyfriend at public events and ran for office with the slogan "I'm gay and that's a good thing." But even he doesn't believe a level playing field exists yet. "As long as the sexual orientation of a candidate is publicly discussed at all," he says, "one has to assume that it's still not normal for a gay person to aim for such a position."

Still, that's a long way from the climate faced by many gay politicians in America. Opponents of gay candidates there often focus the race on sexuality — and have found that it wins them more votes. Jim Roth, former Oklahoma county commissioner and the state's first publicly elected gay official, says that in 2002, rivals wrongly claimed his partner had AIDS. In 2006, church groups, he says, passed out literature claiming he would "advance the homosexual agenda." In 2008, while running for a post to oversee the state's energy resources, he faced similar attacks and lost. "Their coordinated attacks on my sexuality really resonated in parts of Oklahoma," he says. "How do you respond to a ridiculous anti-gay-only message?" One answer: don't. During the home stretch of Houston's mayoral race in December, Annise Parker simply ignored attacks on her sexuality, and won. (Read: "What Houston's Gay Mayor Means for Texas.")

For a group fighting for the right to marry and serve in the military while openly gay, success in politics is about more than pride. "We need to have people at the table of power when decisions are being made about our lives," says Dison of the Victory Fund. "Our straight allies and nonallies get to know us as human beings, and that tends to affect hearts and minds."

In Iceland, Sigurdardottir now sits at the head of that table. In a country where gay men and women have few battles left to fight, she's thought of first as a politician. That may explain the media's indifference to her sexuality. Some editors in Reykjavik say they ignored it to respect Sigurdardottir's privacy. Thorhallsson, of the University of Iceland, who is himself gay, believes that shows there is still work to be done. "It's a strange claim because she isn't in the closet," he says. "It shows that the media doesn't really know how to handle gay politicians." Perhaps. But only in Iceland could overlooking the Prime Minister's sexual orientation be taken as a slight. In many other parts of the world, that would count as a victory.
— With reporting by Stephanie Kirchner / Berlin and Gaëlle Faure and Tara Kelly / London

Read: "Iceland Picks the World's First Openly Gay PM."

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