Let’s chat about the 2016 Democratic National Convention. I know I had made a promise to myself not to get involved with anything too soon after completion of the John C. Anderson LGBT-friendly senior affordable apartments but, hey, when Philadelphia calls, I answer. Philly is bidding for the honor to host that convention, and I’ve been asked and agreed to serve on the committee working on the bid.
So last Friday, about 60 of us gathered and each stood up and gave our information. First was someone from the chamber of commerce, another from PECO, various unions, banks, state and city political leaders. Then it was my turn: “Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News. I was a member of the committee that brought the Republican convention to town and once again I’ll be doing our LGBT outreach.”
That little intro made a powerful statement — that the LGBT community is important to this city and to the Democratic National Committee. Make no mistake, this is a serious bid by the city.
And as we go along, I’ll be asking many of you to help or join in this effort. But our first job is to raise the funds to create a professional proposal. We’re about nine months behind other cities bidding on the convention but we have an incredible team in place, and major support from many on the Democratic National Committee.
Philadelphians sometimes do not appreciate how great a city we actually are. You already know that Human Rights Campaign rates us as the best city for LGBT people to live, and that Philly was the leader in LGBT rights dating back to the late 1960s and through the mid-1970s. It’s been 14 years since we’ve had a national political convention in Philadelphia. But that year we went after both Democratic and Republican conventions. Our proposals and site visits were so powerful that both parties wanted their convention in Philly. But 2000 was the year that the Republicans got to pick their city first, and no city hosts both conventions. The Republicans picked Philly in 2000, and now for 2016 we are bidding just for the Democratic convention. Why do we want this convention? We want it for the same reasons we want any convention in Philadelphia. It brings millions of dollars in revenue and jobs, and in the case of a political convention, great publicity for our hospitality industry. And for us as an LGBT community, it’s the chance to show the nation why our community earned and deserves that number-one HRC rating.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].