Duane Re-Elected
For New York State Senator Thomas Duane, the question was never whether or not to publicly disclose his HIV status, but when. After meeting with consultants, Duane decided to announce his HIV status during his 1991 City Council campaign to most effectively bring a voice to the thousands of New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.
Duane, the first and only openly gay and HIV-positive New York State politician, was re-elected as State Senator for the 29th District, which is home to large gay communities in Greenwich Village and Chelsea. In 2002, Senator Duane pushed the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, a bill first proposed 31 years earlier. The enacting of this bill into law in 2003 made New York the 13th state, and second largest after California, to enact such a bill guarding against discrimination on the grounds of actual or perceived sexual orientation.
Duane’s opponent, Republican Dan Russo ran in order to uphold the interests of middle class New Yorkers that he believes have been neglected under Senator Duane. “In the last ten years Tom Duane has represented me as both a City Councilman and State Senator. In those ten years my rent has doubled while space has decreased,” Russo said, “my taxes have increased three times as fast as my salary.”
Russo said that Duane’s commitment to his constituency, especially those concerned with gay and HIV and AIDS related initiatives, should be applauded. However, according to the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York’s statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights and advocacy organization which endorsed Duane, opponent Dan Russo did not submit a questionnaire seeking endorsement. There is no mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues nor HIV or AIDS related issues on Mr. Russo’s homepage. When asked how he would serve to represent these communities, Mr. Russo offered no reply.
Mr. Russo is currently employed as the Director of Finance for an advertising company. His main platform issues include affordable housing and tax relief for the middle class. “The middle class, like me, are being fiscally squeezed out of New York City,” Russo said.
In addition to Senator Duane’s work for gay and lesbian and HIV and AIDS related issues, he proposed legislature advocating tenants’ rights, campaign finance and term limit reform, protection of prisoners’ rights and instituting HIV education and prevention in the state’s prisons. Duane ran on the November 7th ballot as a Democrat as well as under the Working Families Party. “Tom is doing work in Albany on the behalf of the middle class,” said his representative Laura Morrison.
The recent judgment by New Jersey’s Supreme Court to grant same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples is a tremendous victory in the fight for gay civil rights. However, the 15 other states where the constitutions have been amended to ban gay marriage and the reinstation of voter-approved bans on gay marriage in four other states, including New York, prove that the fight is far from over.
Senator Duane, along with other openly gay and HIV positive politicians, such as Illinois State Representative Larry McKean, and Greg Harris who is nominated to replace McKean after his retirement this year, has brought a face and a political voice to the gay community and individuals living with HIV and AIDS. According to his representative Laura Morrison, Duane initially felt that he needed to educate his colleagues about his HIV status. Morrison said that Duane was “shocked at the ignorance of many of his colleagues” when he first entered public office in 1991 and worked to allay the fears and misunderstandings perpetuated by the stigma of the disease.
Duane’s mere presence as the only openly gay and HIV-positive New York State senator incites dialogue on issues that may otherwise be ignored. Sally Clark, a lesbian and former Communications Director at Seattle’s Lifelong Aids Alliance ran for City Council in that city. According to Reno Tripiano of the Lifelong Aids Alliance, it is not the role of these politicians to advocate solely for gay and lesbian and HIV and AIDS related issues. But, “when there are people in office that know that these issues are urgent,” said Mr. Tripiano, “it helps get our causes known.”
While introducing and sponsoring legislation representing the common concerns of the 29th District, Duane has been able to propose and enact bills, including the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act and the Dignity for All Students Act, that protect the civil rights of communities that might have otherwise been overlooked.
During his first term as Senator, Duane worked to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which had been blocked in the senate for 11 years prior to Duane’s election. Because the bill protecting against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation did not explicitly reference transgender persons, Senator Duane introduced the Gender Non-Discrimination Act in 2003. The bill is still in the legislature and will be re-introduced next session. “Hopefully we will have more Democrats in office to help pass the bill,” said Laura Morrison of Senator Tom Duane’s office.
In his next term, Senator Duane aims to push for legislative reform to improve the efficiency of the existing processes, restore the New York City commuter tax to bring more revenue into the city, and to establish statewide AIDS services to ensure that anyone in New York State who tests positive for HIV has the necessary services and resources available to them.