In celebration of Pride Month, I’m taking a little excursion around the U.S., breezing through some old and new gay friendly places. This week, a general look-see at the country as a whole and then next, a close-up on our fair state of California. Let’s start with the criteria. What does it mean, exactly, to be gay-friendly?
Good old Wikipedia defines gay-friendly as a term describing places, people or institutions that are open and welcoming to gay people, including all members of the LGBTQ community. Ideally, a gay-friendly place is one that is “supportive of gay people and their relationships, respectful of all, treats all people equally and is non-judgmental.” Who doesn’t love that definition, and the fact it isn’t a universal standard is most perplexing, to say the least.
Anyway, several publications and Web sites have created their own criteria to rate the most gay-friendly places to live in the U.S. and a trip around the Web reveals some interesting measuring tools. Nerd Wallet, for instance, rating the 10 most gay-friendly cities uses three standards: 1) The Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index to assess laws affecting LGBT residents vis-à-vis non-discrimination, employment practices, city services etc.; 2) Sheer numbers, i.e. the percentage of same-sex households according to the U.S. Census; 3) Safety criteria evaluated as the number of hate crimes for sexual orientation. Their results utilizing these three criteria are as follows. The most gay-friendly cities in the U.S. are: Palm Springs, San Francisco, Seattle, Long Beach, Cambridge, Mass., Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, San Diego and finally, New York.
A more humorous take of gay-friendly criteria is found in the 2014 Advocate’s rundown written by Dan Savage. He includes such sources as Wikipedia’s list of women’s colleges, city-data’s compilation of lesbian coupled-headed households, www.out.com’s list of best gay bars, a search of gay elected officials and the concert schedules of such pop icons as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and Pink.
These criteria yield some similar results with the list of gay friendly cities reading as follows.
Washington, D.C., Pasadena, Calif., Seattle, Cambridge, Mass., Atlanta, St. Louis, Madison, Wis., Salt Lake City, Oakland and Arlington, Va. In the case of the newly added St. Louis, Savage credits the relatively new status to the city’s three gay elected officials, gay rodeo association and gay-friendly concert lineup He terms it “the open-minded heart of the Midwest”. Cambridge’s cred has a lot to do with its mayor: E. Denise Simmons, the nation’s first African American lesbian mayor.
The surprising addition of Salt Lake to the 2014 list is attributed to more than half a dozen bars and clubs and a popular annual Gay Pride celebration that last year was attended by many Mormon family members of LGBT kids, siblings and parents.
The good news is that gay life has permeated into the culture of many, many cities, and that gay people are now so much a part of the thriving culture of most every nook and cranny of the country that perhaps in due time these lists will be irrelevant. When the distinctions fade away, when the lists are no more, we will rejoice that true equality has been reached.
Del Phillips is a California Licensed Real Estate agent. He is a member of the National, California and San Diego Association of Realtors. You can reach Del at Ascent Real Estate at 619-298-6666 or at Del@DelPhillips.com DRE LIC #01267333.
