Remembering Mayor Riordan’s support of the LGBTQ community

Recognizing historic advances he made in helping us strive toward full equality

By KAREN OCAMB

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan died last Wednesday at the age of 92. Other than a brief mention in LAist, readers of his Los Angeles Times obituary and other remembrances might have no clue about the profound impact this rich, white, old, moderate Republican had on LA’s LGBTQ community and how many lives he helped save during the height of the Second Wave of AIDS.

I covered Riordan’s 1993 mayoral race against LA City Councilmember Mike Woo and was shocked to learn that not everyone in the lesbian and gay community supported the strong Democratic ally who represented Silver Lake and other gay strongholds in the city.

The beginning of 1993 was full of promise. LA-based ANGLE (Access Now to Gay and Lesbian Equality), with the strong leadership of gay political consultant David Mixner, had just organized the fi rst-ever gay voting bloc to elect Mixner’s friend Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton as President of the United States.

Clinton had promised an AIDS Czar and funding for AIDS research, plus he’d lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the US military and would sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Two years earlier, in 1991, as a nod to the emerging radical Republican right led by Congressmember Newt Gingrich, California Gov. Pete Wilson had vetoed AB 101, a state gay civil rights bill he’d promised to sign. LGBTQs and allies protested en masse for two weeks.

At the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation on April 25, we celebrated Clinton’s victory and the belief that the end of AIDS — the end of all the endless dying — was near. Earlier, Clinton posed with a handful of lesbian and gay leaders in the Oval Offi ce holding “Conduct Unbecoming,” Randy Shilts’ signed book about gays in the military presented by Torie Osborn.

We had reason for optimism.

But while Richard Riordan seemed very nice with his broad smile and humorously awkward mangled syntax, he was still a Republican. Pete Wilson had proven that using “moderate” before the party affi liation was simply a Trojan Horse. Plus, Riordan’s law fi rm, Riordan & McKinzie, represented Cardinal Roger Mahoney’s Catholic archdiocese, a target of ACT UP/LA. It was almost inconceivable that LA — as torn up as it was by the riots sparked by the not guilty verdict for four LAPD cops videotaped beating the crap out of motorist Rodney King — would elect a Republican after 20 years of the beloved Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley.

And then I was introduced to Mike Keeley, an out gay Democrat who was a highly regarded partner in Riordan’s law fi rm, personal friend, and advisor on gay is- sues. ecutive Director Lorri Jean; and he attended LGBT and AIDS events, including hanging out at a Project Angel Food benefi t with people with AIDS such as Aileen Getty. Riordan’s grandest progressive move was literally lifesaving. After talking with advisors such as ANGLE’s Dr. Scott Hitt — chair of the President’s AIDS Advisory Council — and learning about the spread of HIV/AIDS through IV drug use, Riordan found a way around California state law prohibiting the sale and use of drug paraphernalia. On Sept. 6, 1994, Riordan declared a state of emergency that enabled LA City AIDS Coordinator Ferd Eggan and other city offi cials to work with and fund privately-run healthcare programs such as Clean Needles Now.

Keeley introduced me to others who backed Riordan –as did the then-mostly-moderate Log Cabin Republicans. Riordan, we were promised, judged people on their merits, and touted his version of conservative Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater’s phrase about gays in the military: “It’s not whether you’re straight or gay — it’s whether you shoot straight.” The stance was greatly appreciated after so many of us felt betrayed when six months into his presidency, Clinton announced the horrid “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the witch hunts intensifi ed.

By declaring an emergency to combat HIV/AIDS in the nation’s second largest city, Riordan circumvented conservative Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren and Republican Governor Pete Wilson, who had already vetoed two clean needle exchange bills, despite CDC and other studies showing the spread of HIV/AIDS through shared dirty needles. Riordan ordered LAPD Chief Willie Williams to tell offi cers who hung out near known CNN exchange areas and nabbed suspected drug users to prioritize other criminal activities.

Riordan also had good answers when I peppered him with questions, including a promise to ride in the Christopher Street West Pride Parade. Former Mayor Bradley had only ridden once.

He kept that promise, accompanied by LA City Councilmember Joel Wachs, who, despite being closeted, had pressed for anti-gay and anti-AIDS discrimination laws and supported recruitment, hiring and promotion of out lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the LAPD.

During his two terms as mayor, Riordan went beyond expectations and helped renew our faith in America just a tad — appointing Keeley as LA’s fi rst out gay deputy mayor; appointing Art Mattox as LA’s fi rst out gay LAPD police commissioner; contributing to and riding the last leg of the fi rst California AIDS Ride, a fundraiser for the LA Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center run by Ex-

But Riordan’s emergency order went beyond the city of Los Angeles. I interviewed LA County Sheriff Sherman Block — who was elected, not appointed — and he said that he, too, issued a department-wide memorandum telling deputies they had “higher priorities” than making needle exchange citations and arrests. (Interestingly, the Jewish Republican Sheriff was willing to stand up to the Republican state leadership and smudge the law since the Board of Supervisors did not issue a similar emergency order – but, as he told out Adelphia cable host and close Riordan friend Bill Rosendahl, Block would not provide condoms and AIDS education in jails since that would be a tacit admission that sex happened in jails.)

To be clear — there was much with which many LGBT folks could disagree with Richard Riordan. But when it mattered at a peak in the AIDS pandemic before the miraculous triple drug cocktail, Riordan appointed out lesbian and gay people to powerful posts, lifted up and participated in LGBT visibility, and most importantly, saved lives by putting healthcare above politics.

While mainstream media may ignore us with the usual benign neglect, it is incumbent upon our own LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities to recognize the historic advances the late mayor made in helping us strive towards full equality.

(This article was previously published on Facebook and is republished by permission.)