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It’s tough to convince anyone who’s never lived in Houston (particularly someone in the GLBT community) that there’s more to America’s fourth largest city than oil companies, suburban strip malls, cowboy boots, and Republicans. Houston has, for ages, fought an uphill public relations battle; showing off its thriving performing arts venues, lush parks, elegant museums, and bustling gay social scene, and still, most gays outside Houston city limits just aren’t convinced. Perhaps the person best qualified to persuade them is City Controller Annise Parker, Houston’s second-highest elected official and an active member of the city’s gay/lesbian community for nearly 30 years.

Parker ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1991 and 1995, but in 1997, she prevailed in the run-off to become Houston’s first openly gay or lesbian elected official. She was re-elected in 1999 and 2001 without being forced to a run-off. When term limits ended her tenure on the city council in 2003, Parker decided to run for Controller. Much to the delight of Houston’s GLBT community, Parker won the race with an impressive 62% of the vote. She ran unopposed in 2005 and 2007, and as of November 2007, she is headed into her final term. Don’t be surprised if you hear a lot more about Parker in the coming year, however. She’s considered by many as one of the top contenders for the Houston mayoral race in 2009.

Given that Parker has become one of the most visible faces of the Democratic party in this city, many might be surprised to learn that she’s a third-generation Houstonian whose family values were rooted in the Pentecostal church and the Republican party. She says, “Everyone in my family is Republican except me. Yes, they were and still are conservative, and they were active in the church. But they were also very active in the community and politics; and keep in mind how much the Republican party has changed in recent decades. Back then it wasn’t the God and the gays thing, like it is now.”

Parker goes on to describe her family’s work ethic, saying, “These were hardworking people. My mom worked as a bookkeeper, and even my grandmothers worked. One was a secretary and the other was a school teacher. There were no housewives in our family. Mom’s parents had a farm where I spent my weekends and summers. I like to say I’m a city girl, but I can still milk a cow and pluck a chicken! You know, Houston was a very different place 50 years ago.”

Beyond a strong work ethic, perhaps the greatest legacy passed on to Parker from her family was their deep belief in education and civic participation: “My parents and grandparents were religious about voting. I remember waiting with them to go into the voting booth. It felt very important, almost like going to church. My grandparents volunteered in political campaigns. A very formative memory for me was watching the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination and seeing my family’s reaction to that, and then the Lyndon Johnson campaign against the Arizona Republican [Barry Goldwater]. My whole family was watching the conventions and supporting [Goldwater], but of course Johnson won by a landslide. I have no earthly idea how I became a Democrat! When I decided to get into politics, all my friends were Democrats. I started down that path and haven’t gone back.”

Parker’s father was in the Red Cross, which brought the family (she has one younger sister who lives in rural Georgia) to Mississippi, Germany, and Charleston, South Carolina, where Annise graduated from high school. When it came time to select a university, however, Parker knew she wanted to attend Houston’s esteemed Rice University. She says, “I knew Houston was my home. It still is my home. I wanted to go to Rice—it was the only school I applied to.”

It was during her years at Rice that Parker began to make her way into politics and the burgeoning gay movement. She says, “Rice didn’t have the student protests in the 70s. People there are very focused on academics, but during my sophomore year, the drinking age changed to 18, so I could go to bars, and I became close to a woman who was politically active. She was older, around 50, but she took me to a women’s conference. I watched that unfold, and I was a volunteer for the League of Women’s Voters. I became sort of a mascot for a lot of older people in the women’s movement, as well as the ‘baby-gay movement’ in Houston.”

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