Thousands united Nov. 12 in front of a Mormon temple in Midtown and marched to Columbus Circle to protest Proposition Hate, er…Proposition 8.
A new generation of activists unites via the Internet. Log on and Join the Impact.
A multimedia SAGE campaign makes LGBT elders more visible—even on New York’s subways and buses.
How will his departure affect LGBT issues in Albany?
Industry leaders powwow to raise questions about the persecution of clubland.
Anti-gay hate crimes are on the rise across the U.S.—homophobic incidents have even surfaced at a local production of play “Judy and Me.”
Spurred by a gay marriage ban in California, simultaneous protests were
held Nov. 14 across the nation. In Manhattan, 4,000 rallied at City Hall.
Next up: A Dec. 10 event called A Day Without a Gay.
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By KERRY ELEVELD
Friday, January 26, 2007
Page Six of the New York Post ran a piece last Sunday saying that some Albany politicians have expressed concerns that one of the 17 candidates to succeed former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi might be in the closet. Hevesi resigned after pleading guilty to fraud at the end of last year.
If lawmakers looking to avoid further scandal are squeamish about picking someone who is closeted, at least three comptroller candidates are openly gay: investment banker Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher Jr. of Manhattan, Syracuse City Auditor Phil LaTessa and New York City Finance Commissioner Martha Stark.
Buddy Fletcher is an African-American, Harvard-educated philanthropist who founded Fletcher Asset Management in 1991. He also made a highly publicized donation of $50 million in 2004 to broaden the goals of equality set forth in the Brown v. The Board of Education decision 50 years earlier.
Commissioner Martha Stark, the only female applicant for comptroller, was a White House Fellow in 1993 and became the City’s first African-American woman to serve as Finance Commissioner in 2002 when she was appointed to lead the 2300-person agency.
Phil LaTessa was elected Syracuse City Auditor in 2003. He ran for state Senate in 2000 and is a businessman who runs mortgage, real estate, title insurance and property management companies in Syracuse.
A joint legislative panel completed hearings this week of the 17 candidates, from which as many as five will be chosen for a final vote in the legislature. The three-person panel that will make the final recommendations includes former state comptrollers Carl McCall and Ned Regan, and former New York City Comptroller Harrison Goldin.
One of the issues at question following Comptroller Hevesi’s exit is whether his replacement will continue to fight a lawsuit that challenges the New York State Pension Fund’s recognition of same-sex partners who have legally married outside of New York.
Out Assemblymember Deborah Glick asked nearly every candidate whether they would continue to defend Hevesi’s decision to treat same-sex couples married outside of the state the same as opposite-sex couples. Glick said almost everybody responded in the affirmative, with some answers more nuanced than others. All three gay candidates said they would continue to recognize legally wed same-sex couples.
Openly gay state Sen. Thomas Duane said having a gay comptroller could be important for two other reasons. Hevesi was an early supporter of marriage equality, Duane noted, “and it would be important to have another statewide official in addition to Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer who supported same-sex marriage.”
The $145-billion pension fund also wields a lot of investment leverage. “So the amount of stock that the fund holds in various corporations and funds could have a tremendous impact on corporate policies,” Duane said.
Fletcher, LaTessa and Stark all generally support that concept, which is called social investing.
The Syracuse Post Standard reported that LaTessa said he would balance traditionally conservative investments in the pension fund with “investments in socially responsive corporations, which I define as those that do not employ unfair labor practices, environmental damages, etc.”
Fletcher said via e-mail that he “believed that consideration of social and environmental issues can sometimes reduce risk and can also create new profit opportunities.”
In a phone interview, Commissioner Stark said that while social investing was considered “radical” in the early ’90s , it has become clear that corporate governance has a direct correlation on return on investments.
“The most engaged employees produce the best result and therefore positively affect investment returns,” Stark said, “and engaged employees don’t feel like they are going to be discriminated against because of who they are. To me, companies that discriminate, whether it’s based on race, sexual orientation, religion and the like, are not going to do as well as companies that do not.”
Stark added that the best way to influence companies was to stay invested and help “them see the hard, cold facts of the numbers” in terms of litigation risks and overall employee productivity.
Who will make the first round of cuts and end up in the final joint legislative vote has been the source of great speculation. Somewhat of a power struggle emerged between Gov. Spitzer and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over how the candidates would be chosen and what criteria were most important.
Gov. Spitzer has advocated for someone outside of Albany, perhaps from the private sector, so that their oversight would be less influenced by government officials. But five Assemblymen have applied for the job, and Speaker Silver holds the reigns to the extent that can shepherd the votes of Assembly Democrats, who account for 108 of the 212 votes.
Other considerations mentioned have included choosing someone from upstate, since Gov. Spitzer, Lt. Gov. David Paterson and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo are all downstaters. Many panelists also asked questions about encouraging investments in minority- and women-owned businesses. Finalists are expected to be announced as early as today.
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