Describing the state's Central Valley as conservative has become cliché in California. Pollsters, politicos, and journalists in need of Republican viewpoints can easily turn to the farmlands and orchards dotting the landscape from Redding in the north to Bakersfield in the south.
But peel away this long held notion about the inland areas and a more complex picture emerges. Not only do Democrats reside in the valley, but a growing number of LGBT people call it home and are making their presence known. West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon came out as gay in March of this year while Suisun City Police Chief Ron Forsythe became the first openly gay top cop in the nation when he broke free of the closet in December 2002. A gay man is the current mayor of Chico and a lesbian serves on Fresno's school board.
Modesto's LGBT community hosted its first Pride event Friday, June 16 and saw 400 people attend. Organizers pushing to create a community center there expect to open the doors to a physical location by December. In Bakersfield, LGBTs will gather over Labor Day weekend for the city's third annual Pride event. Fresno's annual Pride turned 16 this year and saw the largest turnout to date. About 3,000 people took part in the festivities and not a protester was in sight.
"At our first Pride the Ku Klux Klan came out to protest," recalled Jeffrey Robinson, CEO of Community Link, a provider of LGBT-oriented services in Fresno that took over the Pride parade four years ago. "We had over 100 youth participate in the parade this year. Those kids are really changing the way things are happening."
Robinson, 44, helped start Community Link 18 years ago as well as launch the Pride Parade. Within the last five years, he said the changes within the area's gay community have become more noticeable.
"Things are changing and getting better. Here in Fresno people are more comfortable being out and holding hands," said Robinson, who has been with his partner, Juan Bustamante, for 14 years.
Chuck Krugman, 51, who has lived in Fresno for two decades, said the time is right for Fresno to have its own LGBT community center.
"It is changing, we are getting an influx of people from other areas here. A lot of the people who are coming down here are retiring from the Bay Area because it is more cost effective to live here. Those more liberal values are coming into the area as well," he said.
The state's LGBT and progressive political groups have also taken notice and are placing more focus and resources in these inland districts. At Fresno's Pride, Marriage Equality USA, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and the Lambda Letters Project all had booths.
Equality California also set up a table for the second time and signed up 300 new members. The LGBT advocacy group has made a point in the last year to increase its membership in the Central Valley. It hired a field person to organize in and around the northern end of the region and earlier this year opened an office in downtown Fresno. It is a brick-and-mortar sign of how important these once conservative bastions have become in the fight to secure more rights for the LGBT community and protect those already won.
"As the population of California grows, it is growing a lot out in the Central Valley. It is very important we are out there, being visible and doing organizing work in those places," said Equality California Political and Policy Director Seth Kilbourn. "We want to make sure we are talking to as many fair-minded Californians as possible. They are certainly out there in the Central Valley and we need to find them."
Robinson said he welcomes the attention. If gay groups had paid closer notice to valley voters in 2000, he said the antigay Proposition 22, which defined gay marriage as between a man and a woman in the state's family code but applied only to out of state weddings, may not have passed. If another antigay measure makes it onto the ballot, he said the Central Valley will be key to defeating it.
"There are a tremendous amount of moderate votes that could be won here if the campaign is designed toward moderate and conservative voters. I don't think anyone in a political movement can ignore the Central Valley. If they had put more attention into it on Prop. 22, that may not have won," said Robinson, who recalled such a strategy helped defeat an earlier initiative to ban gay people from being teachers. "When we used to work against the Briggs initiative, a lot of time was spent on the valley trying to convince these voters why it is important not to legislate or vote in discrimination."
Democratic politicians are beginning to seek out LGBT and Democratic voters in these areas. State Senator Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo/San Francisco) reached out to Modesto's LGBT community during her failed primary bid for lieutenant governor. Democrat Phil Angelides is running campaign ads throughout the Central Valley in his quest to replace Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I can't recall any politician speaking directly to LGBTs in the Central Valley before. It is an entirely new phenomenon and a welcome one as well," said Lisa Verigin, executive director of Modesto's Stanislaus Pride Center.
Homophobia still present
To be sure, the Central Valley has a long way to go before becoming a true outpost for Bay Area liberalism. Republicans maintain a strong base throughout the region, and those Democrats who do get elected tilt toward their party's more conservative end. U.S. Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced) scored a low 44 points on the Human Rights Campaign's 2004 scorecard. For all the LGBT community's advances, there are still instances of homophobia.
"A lot of people are still being oppressed in that area, especially the youth of the LGBT community. The more education going on in these areas is going to help," said Justin Daley, 18, who fought to hold a gay prom in Tracy and faced down bigot Fred Phelps. "A lot of kids in the Central Valley, especially in Stockton and Manteca, are having problems getting [gay-straight student alliances] off the ground. There are not a lot of youth in those areas able to get people on their side."
An intern with openly gay Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), Daley plans to attend the University of San Francisco this fall and has his sights set on running one day for public office. While he doesn't plan on returning to the valley to live, Daley is confident those LGBTs who remain in the area will face less discrimination over time.
"I am hopeful. There are a lot of pro-LGBT organizations getting off the ground. The environment itself is getting more open-minded," he said. "There are a lot of commuters now from San Jose and everywhere else. There is a mixing of oil and vinegar, so to speak, with the people who have been there a long time and don't agree with LGBT issues and then the people from the Bay Area who are more open-minded and supportive of these issues. Over time, it is going to become more and more accepting."
Nowhere is this dichotomy between left and right truer than in Fresno, a town of nearly 500,000 residents with a metropolitan area of more than 1 million people. The largest inland city and the sixth largest in the state, Fresno sits in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley and is about a three-hour drive from San Francisco.
In 2004, Democrat Jim Costa won election to an open congressional seat. His district includes Fresno's Tower District, a gay-friendly enclave in the city's downtown that plays host to Pride every June. At the other end of the spectrum is Fresno Republican Mayor Alan Autry, a former Green Bay Packer who starred as Bubba Skinner in the TV series In the Heat of the Night. The local LGBT community loathes the second-term "Mayor Bubba" (he won re-election in 2004 with 73 percent of the vote) for his vocal opposition to gay marriage and his refusal to support the town's Pride event.
On the City Council there is more support, said Krugman, president of the local Stonewall Democrats. He pointed to a Pride proclamation presented this year by City Council member Cynthia Sterling, a Democrat who won re-election outright in the June primary three days after serving as honorary Pride grand marshal this year, and termed-out Council member Tom Boyajian. Scott Miller, a registered Republican whose father is gay, is in a runoff against Blong Xiong, a member of the area's Hmong community, for Boyajian's seat. While Xiong has not reached out to the gay community, Miller has.
"He appears very supportive of the gay community. He says he supports gay marriage and all civil rights for gay people," said Krugman.
Krugman is admittedly "no fan" of the mayor's. Nor is he all that pleased with most of the area's Democratic officeholders. Even though his 30-member chapter is well received by the local Democratic Party, Krugman said it still is an uphill fight to get politicians to support LGBT issues.
"In Fresno County there are some Democratic officeholders; we have a few on the city council and one on the Board of Supervisors. Of the three state Assembly districts that encompass Fresno County, two of those are held by Democrats. But their voting records when it comes to LGBT issues leave a lot to be desired. They are concerned about how the rest of the electorate would perceive them if they voted for LGBT issues," said Krugman.
Robinson shared Krugman's disappointment, but he also said it is imperative that the LGBT community be out and demand more from their politicians.
"It is hard to convince people there is a large gay constituency here if they can't see it," said Robinson.
Younger people in their 20s and 30s are less fearful than their older counterparts to be out in the community, said Robinson. Because of lingering fears many longtime LGBT residents remain in the closet and avoid public events, he said.
Bakersfield native Becki Jones, 29, moved to Fresno a decade ago and is part of the new generation pushing for change. At first, she said it was hard to meet other gays and lesbians. Today, the community is much more visible, she said.
"With groups like Equality California, Marriage Equality and PFLAG, and the Pride groups at City College and Fresno State, it gives people more empowerment to be themselves. It's been a big difference," she said.
She said she has seen some resistance from older lesbians and gay men who are not as visible at community events.
"They didn't want to stir the pot. They didn't want change to come around and cause a big stink," said Jones. "When we have events and fundraisers it is mainly the younger crowd, probably 35 and under, that shows up."
Changes
For years, many younger LGBTs left the area as soon as they could. Fresno native Matthew Fashion couldn't wait to leave when he graduated from his Catholic high school in 2003. The MTV personality, who appeared in the first episode of Bravo's Project Runway, returned this year to serve as Pride's first celebrity grand marshal. Afraid to come out until he left, Fashion was shocked to see so many people at the event.
"Fresno is not a bad place. It is an amazingly wonderful place to raise a family. But for the most part the LGBTQ community it is not accepted there yet," recalled Fashion. "To be named celebrity grand marshal was a huge wake-up call for me. Obviously, things are changing there since I moved. People are opening up their eyes a little bit more. I am hoping not only will more people there attend Pride but the parade itself and festival becomes more corporate sponsored and gain more money from the community and support from the local government."
Jones said she believes the town in general is becoming more supportive of the LGBT community. In the past if she and her friends had demonstrated for LGBT rights downtown, "we would have gotten a lot of fingers and jeers," said Jones. "Now, we can sit on a corner and people give us thumbs up."
A freelance journalist for the six-year old www.GayFresno.com Web site, Jones put together an LGBT softball team two years ago. The league's other teams have for the most part welcomed them, though she said they recently did encounter some trouble at a game this spring.
"We only had one team that gave us any problems and it wasn't the team but their supporters," said Jones.
Jason Scott, 26, has lived in Fresno his whole life. He launched the GayFresno.com Web site in 2000 to bring the LGBT community together. Traffic to the site has steadily grown and generates up to 5,000 unique visitors each month.
"We wanted a way to connect people in this town because there really isn't any gay hangouts other than the bars where people can go and get information about what is going on in the community," said Scott, who with his partner of six years, RJ Gray, was one of the thousands of couples to get married in 2004 at San Francisco City Hall.
The two did discuss moving to a larger city at one point, but Scott said they felt they could have a greater impact if they stayed.
"My thought about leaving the area is there isn't a lot of leadership here and I feel like there is a lot more needed here than in some of the other places," said Scott.
Scott may not feel that way much longer. Unlike in 2000, when he and his friends mustered up a handful of people to protest Proposition 22, they now can bring out as many as 300 people to protest against the mayor's antigay marriage stance.
Chris Jarvis, 44, a GayFresno.com columnist and local DJ, moved back to his hometown in 1986. He said while some things about Fresno are the same, much is different. As for the future, Jarvis only sees things getting better.
"When I was young there was not much going on here. Now there is more theater, arts, and clubs. It is not like we are a burgeoning cultural center, but at least we have things to do here. The mood here is still very conservative, but there is a big gay community," said Jarvis, who met his partner, James Hensley, 10 years ago when they were both visiting San Francisco.