Courtesy Si Smits collection
Karen Gotzler campaign button 1996
As LGBTQ History Month comes to a close, there’s one more historic event needs to be mentioned. In fact, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Milwaukee’s first openly LGBTQ candidate’s campaign for Common Council. The candidate was Karen Gotzler. Oddly, it is not mentioned in H. Richard Wagner’s Coming Out, Moving Forward: Wisconsin’s Recent Gay History and receives only a passing citation the Milwaukee History Project’s 1996 timeline. However, thanks to the History Project’s online archive of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ print media, it is possible to research the ill-fated campaign.
Her campaign began with her victory in Milwaukee’s 3rd District primary election in February 1996. Gotzler had already established herself as a high-profile community activist. A decade earlier, in the mid-1980s, Gotzler was part of the Cream City Business Association (CCBA); at one point, she was its president. The organization was dedicated to LGBTQ community development and health. A CCBA fundraising project would evolve to become Cream City Foundation. Gotzler was also a founder of the Lesbian Alliance of Metropolitan Milwaukee (LAMM), the city’s first exclusively lesbian organization. In 1991, in response to the Jeffry Dahmer murders, she was part of a coalition designed to establish better community communication with the Milwaukee Police Department.
Cascade of Endorsements
Gotzler’s win was particularly noteworthy since she had prevailed in a field of 10 candidates. In fact, the primary slate included another gay contender who immediately endorsed his opponent upon her win. A cascade of endorsements followed across the spectrum of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ organizations alike, the Milwaukee Journal among them. She appeared to be headed to an easy victory.
Then, two incidents rocked her campaign. The first, a personal one, involved a former partner’s run-in with the Madison police in which she had been shot. Gotzler temporarily left her campaign to tend to her friend. The second, however, would be far more damaging. It involved the arrest of Gotzler’s brother on drug charges. Although no charges were ever filed against the candidate herself, the implication of her involvement led to some withdrawing their support.
The gay Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), had endorsed Gotzler. But, as reported in the March 1996 edition of Wisconsin Light, the group withdrew its support citing the organization’s belief that, due to the alleged involvement with her brother’s activity, she had compromised her potential as a role model and had lost her “value” as a lesbian elected official.
Ironically, in the newspaper’s same edition, James McFarland, then president of the LCR, penned an article explaining the group’s endorsement of Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, in the upcoming primary. At the time, the main threat to Dole was Pat Buchanan, an extremist Christian nationalist whom McFarland compared to Adolf Hitler. He also presented a wishful thinking scenario of Dole’s support for the gay community despite all indications that the candidate had no such inclinations.
GOP Hypocrisy
In an editorial in that same edition of Wisconsin Light activist Bill Meunier responded in kind. He pointed out the “lock goose step” hypocrisy of the gay Republican endorsement of a candidate who opposed marriage equality, gays serving in the military, and who had “embraced the Christian Coalition and praised rightwing extremists.“
Gotzler’s narrow defeat in her quest for elected office has been attributed in part to the questions raised by her brother’s legal woes. Meunier’s editorial foresaw the collateral damage of the news and laid blame specifically on the LCR, writing “For a brief moment there was hope that perhaps the deep chasm between them and the rest of the community could be bridged with everyone working together on a common campaign. Now that hope has been dashed and the chasm is wider than ever.”
Perhaps dissuaded by the negative aspects of entering the local political fray, it would be another dozen years after Gotzler’s campaign before out LGBTQ candidates would again vie for a Milwaukee aldermanic seat. It would be nearly a quarter century after Gotzler’s campaign that a LGBTQ candidate would be elected in 2020 as a Milwaukee alderperson.
While the community’s political chasm may be wider than ever, Gotzler’s historic campaign marked a significant moment in our LGBTQ struggle for equality. If nothing else, it provides a obvious lesson worthy of study.
