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NEWSWORKS: At a time when so many of us say we’re sick of politicians and want to throw all the bums out, we generally don’t. And that’s one lesson from yesterday’s legislative races in Pennsylvania. Incumbents prevailed almost everywhere.But in Philadelphia, the rule was broken by Brian Sims, an openly gay attorney who mobilized a national constituency to unseat a fixture in the city’s Harrisburg delegation, Democratic state Rep. Babette Josephs of Center City. Josephs, who was elected when Ronald Reagan was president, was simply overhelmed by Sims’ direct mail and field effort. A veteran committeeman from the 8th ward told me he’d never seen anything like it: 10 direct mail pieces and two election day door-hangers, with plenty of sneakers on the street. If you look at Sims’ campaign finance report, you’ll see this is no mystery – scores of contributions, many from out-of-state, reflecting the push to make him the Commonwealth’s first openly-gay legislator. MORE
HUFFINGTON POST: Brian Sims never really had to come out to his college football team as gay. In fact, it was the other way around: his team more came out to him.
My quarterback and I… I think we were walking back to the car to get beer out of the trunk. And out of nowhere, the guy turns around and goes, “Yo, Sims. You gay?” And it completely caught me off guard, and I really quickly said, “Yeah, man, thanks for asking.” And we both sort of stood there. It was one of those things where it felt like five minutes; it was probably five seconds. And he says, “Cool, man, thanks for telling me.” And we just sort of kept on walking like it hadn’t happened. And we got to the car, picked up some beer, walked back.
For the next three months, Brian couldn’t go anywhere without one of his teammates stopping him to say, “Hey, man, just wanted to let you know, I heard, and it’s really cool with me, I got no problems with that, sorry about anything I might have said.” MORE