ANNISE PARKER, THE HOUSTON EMBRACE OF A SAME-SEX POLITICIAN!

Call it whatever you like - a tale of another American city gone with 'gay-wind', an aberration and self-contradictory for a Southern Texas city or just anything? Call it a tale of another American city infected with the virulent gay-virus or another city gone gay-ho? Call it another American city now unabashedly, fully and completely more inclusive and accommodating? Call it a case of another American city, now sodomized? Call it a testimonial or an affirmation that 'same-sexes' are now here to stay?

Whatever you like or any nomenclature you feel best captured for you, the earth-shattering political development in Houston Texas; you may just call it! But Icheoku choose to surmise that what happened in the mayoral election in the city of Houston was a testament that it is really a new day in America! People are now accepted as people, human-beings as human-beings, citizens as citizens irrespective of their peculiar likes or dislikes, interests and disinterests including unique sexual preferences!

And so it is that the fire lit in 1977 in San Francisco California by the late Harvey Milk has spread to Houston Texas? The fire has gradually spread through the land, razing certain stereotyping along the way, as it made its way across the length and breath of our great nation to now Houston Texas. Harvey Milk, wherever your brave soul may be today, this one in Houston Texas is for you! Thank you for giving a voice to a formerly voiceless people; a people who instead of hiding in closets of shame are today, proudly proclaiming on mountain tops, their preferences for the same-sex and homosexual relationships, rather than the orthodoxy of heterosexism. Harvey Milk, if only you know how far the experiment of San Francisco has now worked its way into the land and still marching on! Mayor-elect Anniste Parker of Houston owes her victory to your foresight and trail-blazing activism in San Francisco California; a victory which the cruel hands of Mr. White made impossible for you to witness in person. But please let your soul be assured that all the recorded gains and prospective future ones are all because you stood up and proclaimed, 'We are human-beings too!'

As Houston becomes 'gay-tized', joining other American cities of Portland-Oregon, Providence-Rhode Island and Cambridge-Massachusetts to proudly elect openly gay-politicians as their mayors, Icheoku says, it took sometime to get here; but sure it is spreading fast and furious like California's Santa Ann wind driven fire! Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to run and win a public office in California stood up in in San Francisco in 1977 to say, 'Yes we are humans like you, full citizens and can be elected to public offices too!' Harvey gave same-sex people a voice and said 'gays are unblemished citizens and can and should be allowed the opportunity of being elected to public offices of their choosing and in whatever capacity? He emphasised that being different in sexual preferences does not necessarily mean being weird or incapable of rendering service; and today, his message of equality has been heard in far away Houston Texas. Houstonians said, in a loud thundering voice, 'Yes we heard the gospel of equality preached in San Francisco' and approved the application of Ms Anniste Parker for the mayor-ship of their city and hired her. Now the oil city of Texas has sent a message in a bottle and thrown on a churning waters, which purveyor is fast taking it to another city. Soon and very soon, city by city, Harvey Milk's message will completely percolate the land and who ever does not like it, might as well leave, pack up and leave for Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or even to Iran where they execute same-sex people?

The victory of Ms. Parker is also a blow to the far right wing fundamentalists Christians of America who always like to pretend that they are in charge of this land and that are in the majority? The election shows that either these pretenders of Christianity are in the minority or no one listens to their hypocrisy any longer, nor attaches any importance to the hate many of their preachers spew out on their various pulpits? 'Thou shall not judge'; 'I come for those who are sick and not those who are well'; 'He who is without sin should throw the first stone'; 'Those who are well have no need for physicians' etc are some of the biblical passages these band of Christian charlatans avoid cleverly and would rather not be seen applying in their daily sanctimonious and adumbrating preachings. The election also shows that these brand of hateful Christians are fast losing the war for the hearts and souls of many civilized Americans, who would rather they are not yoked to the dark ages of the early arrivees, who were so rigid to a fault that in Salem Massachusetts they burnt at the stake, supposed witches and wizards at the stake?

But the dynamism of progress behoves on every modern day American to see peoples' unique preferences and differences not as a complete de-humanising factor that would warrant some of the vituperation coming out of these so called preachers of the bible. But in whose name are they preaching their hate message; certainly not in the name of the God and Jesus known to Icheoku! We also believe that it is still not late for these hating people to learn their lessons and change their ways fast before they bring damnation upon themselves for hating God's own people! It is regrettable that these people think that what Mr. Dan White could not achieve with his acts of violence way back in November 27, 1978, could be achieved today, three long decades later? If his callous murder did not stop a train after it left the station, what else would now? Icheoku says the genie has since outgrown the neck of the bottle and these so called fundamentalist American Talibans must and should advise themselves accordingly. That 1977 leap of fate, bravery and uncommon valor of Mr. Harvey Milk has now mushroomed into so many possibilities for the LGBT community, including another mayoral seat in another American city, the city of Houston; a Christian south Texas State city, of all places? Icheoku congratulates mayor-elect Annise Parker on her election victory; and prays, as she starts her term on January 1, 2010, may the Almighty God guide and protect her as she delivers for the city of Houston, on her election promises!