ST. PETERSBURG –– The rows of rainbow…

ST. PETERSBURG –– The rows of rainbow flags, feather boas and glitter-streaked men dressed as Hollywood starlets made for an unusual campaign backdrop.

But there they were, a handful of St. Petersburg mayoral and City Council candidates, passing out campaign literature, posing for pictures and introducing themselves to potential voters amid Saturday’s St. Pete Pride festivities.

In a sign of St. Petersburg’s changing politics, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is harnessing its collective voice, forcing candidates to take notice.

After years of tension between the group and conservative Mayor Rick Baker, it’s seizing the coming leadership change as a chance to make inroads and get its issues addressed.

“It is a matter of get-out-the-vote,” said Rick Boylan, founder of the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats. “If we can mobilize the community and inform them of which candidates support issues and which candidates are pro-equality and get them to participate, we can definitely have an impact on who is elected.”

See St. Petersburg’s gay community seeks to become key voting bloc in …

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Judge likely won’t grant Prop. 8 injunction
A…

Judge likely won’t grant Prop. 8 injunction

A federal judge in San Francisco said Tuesday that he is disinclined to suspend California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage while a lawsuit challenging it as a violation of the U.S. Constitution proceeds in his court.

In a tentative order, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker said he’d rather move directly to a speedy trial on the case’s merits than grant a preliminary injunction that would temporarily allow gay nuptials. see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/30/state/n150147D61.DTL