http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/1-will-pennsylvania-elect-six-out-lgbt-freshman-legislators-in-november/politics/2012/04/05/37445
Here in Pennsylvania, where we have rapidly fallen behind neighboring states New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in recent years when it comes it LGBT rights, we have zero out legislators, and zero statewide LGBT civil rights. Equality Pennsylvania has had policy wins such as working with PennDOT to make gender marker changes on driver’s licensees and photo ID’s far less invasive for transgender Pennsylvanians. Equality PA has also played a major role in passing over twenty five local non-discrimination ordinances. But, despite having some wonderful allies in Harrisburg, our best chance to finally achieve state-wide LGBT civil rights will come from electing out candidates. We have not one or two, but six chances to do that this year. In 2013, Pennsylvania could have six out, proud, qualified Representatives in our state House.
All six out candidates (that I’m currently aware of via various endorsements) are running as Democrats and all six are running in different districts for the Pennsylvania State House. Three of the candidates face primary challenges on April 24th; the other three are the only Democrats running in their districts and will run against Republicans, incumbent or otherwise, in the November general election. Pennsylvania is the second largest state to have never elected an out legislator, and each of these candidates have received various endorsements, from both LGBT and other organizations, based not on their identities but their values, abilities, and campaign platforms.
Among the six out candidates, four are gay men, all white, and two are lesbian women; one is white and one is a Muslim woman of color. To have even a third of the out candidates be women is almost twice as strong a showing as the current makeup of the Pennsylvania General Assembly (GA). According to the Center for American Women and Politics, Pennsylvania comes in at a lowly 42nd place in the nation for gender parity in legislative bodies, with only 17% of legislators being women. By comparison, Colorado leads the nation with 41%.