Wyoming's Gay Republican Lawmaker Stands Firm
Wyoming's lone LGBTQ Republican state lawmaker, Dan Zwonitzer, has never managed to get a hate crimes bill passed - but he has helped to stop a number of anti-LGBTQ bills from advancing, reports NBC News.
If voters decide to keep him in office on Nov. 3, Zwonitzer intends to keep right on doing what he's been doing. "We've never taken very many steps forward," he told NBC News, "but we never took a step back,"
The specter of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was severely beaten by two men in 1998 and died a few days later of his injuries, still looms over the state. Federal hate crimes legislation passed in 2009 was named in part for Shepard. But on the state level, Zwonitzer and other lawmakers have had no luck getting anti-discrimination laws approved. Noting that "he has come up against a wall of opposition from conservative colleagues," NBC News recalled that "Last year, a bill he sponsored that would have protected LGBTQ Wyomingites against workplace discrimination floundered in the House."
Zwonitzer vowed not to give up.
"I would be ecstatic if during my 16th year — if I last that long — to be able to say we actually did move Wyoming forward," he told NBC News..
Though far-right challengers managed to prevail over more moderate lawmakers in seven Wyoming districts in the primaries, Zwonitzer easily defeated his own challenger, John Harvey, winning the primary by nearly 15 percentage points, the news report said.
Zwonitzer credited voters in his district, saying, "I like to think that's because they know me, they trust me and they kind of have the same mindset I do."
The Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ candidates across the country, has lent its backing to Zwonitzer, who is on the ballot for what, if he wins, will be his ninth term as a member of the Wyoming State House of Representatives.
"Having been elected at age 24 in 2005, for 16 years Dan has helped stop every anti-LGBT bill from passage while continuing to push for equality and fairness for all Wyomingites," the Victory Fund notes.
Zwonitzer's successful efforts to fend off anti-marriage equality bills and other anti-LGBTQ legislative efforts have helped earn him the reputation of being a RINO - a "Republican in Name Only" - from the state's far-right, NBC News noted.
"I'm fine being called a RINO," Zwonitzer told the media. "It's almost a badge of honor right now."
The lawmaker went on to add, "Being gay is who I am. The Republican Party is, you know, a choice right now, and I'll be the first to admit it's getting a little tougher to be a Republican." Even so, he insisted, there is still "a place in the Republican Party for the GLBT community."
A Democratic colleague, Rep. Sara Burlingame, credited Zwonitzer with helping keep Wyoming free of anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent decades, with the last anti-gay law there - a bill prohibiting marriage equality - having been passed in 1978.
Zwonitzer - the son of another Wyoming state representative, David Zwonitzer - stayed in the closet until 2016 because, he told NBC, he was afraid of harming his father's political career. When he did come out, though, he received zero pushback: "No fights, no arguments, no political campaigns against me, no letters to the editor, nothing," Zwonitzer said. He's now married to Justin Browning, and the couple has two adopted sons.