The Advocate - the nation's largest LGBT news magazine - ran a piece in their September 25th issue entitled, "Out With the Mayors." The story centers around University of Toronto business professor Richard Florida's best-selling book The Rise of the Creative Class where he argues that a large gay presence helps a city's economic performance. Five mayors were asked: "Why should young gay professionals move to your city?"

Milwaukee's very own, Mayor Tom Barrett, along with the mayor's from Dallas, Kansas City, MO, Newark, and Portland, OR all answered the question.

Milwaukee's LGBT community should be pretty depressed by the TERRIBLE answer that Mayor Barrett gave. Notice how he doesn't even mention the word "gay" or even the acronym "LGBT". What's up with that Mayor Barrett???

Mayor Mark Funkhouser (Kansas City, MO) probably gave the best answer and he even used a clever reference to The Wizard of Oz. Mayor Tom Leppert of Dallas gave an almost equally bad answer to Barrett's but he at least mentioned GLBT. Leppert beat the openly gay candidate, Ed Oakley, in June 2007 in what supporters hoped would become the largest city with an openly gay mayor in the US.

Mayor Barrett certainly needs to work on catering to Milwaukee's thriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Let's ask him to begin by saying the right words.