Alex Morse, Young Gay Mayor

UPDATE: In November, 2013, Morse was elected to a second term as mayor. In 2015 he was elected to a third term, and in January 2017 he turned 28 years old. Original post was published on November 16, 2011.

Out and gay Alex Morse (at left, photo by Rob Deza) is the newly-elected 22-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, but CBS did not mention his sexual orientation on their Sunday news segment on Morse. That issue simply wasn't an issue in this campaign, according to The New Civil Rights Movement, a website dedicated to gay rights topics, especially same-sex marriage.

"He is gay. He is out. He has worked for the cause. He just won a stunner of a political victory, and as hard as this is to conceptualize, being gay was not a complicating factor in his campaign," writes Jean Ann Esselink in an article titled "On Our Radar – Mayor-Elect Alex Morse" that was posted Sunday on the website.

The 2½-minute CBS news segment included some hardscrabble images of the heavily Hispanic city, where a third of residents live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers around 11 percent. Morse, who takes office in January, says he's looking forward to managing a city with a $120 million budget and nearly 40,000 residents.

"I think of my age as an incredible asset, in that I haven't been around for 20 (or) 30 years. I'm not beholden to special interests. I haven't been around long enough to owe anybody a political favor," the mayor-elect told CBS.

But the optimism of Morse – a recent Brown University graduate who launched a mayoral bid while still attending the Ivy League school – shines through. He played up the city's bright spots, including a high-tech office park expected to serve as a magnet for new jobs and plans to renovate the old Victory Theater.

"One of the most satisfying things to do in life is to do what others tell you you cannot do, and I think that's what we did throughout this campaign," Morse says in the CBS interview. "Never once did I listen to folks who said, 'You're too young, you haven't paid your dues.'"

Morse, a political neophyte who won 53 percent of the vote in last Tuesday's election, unseated incumbent mayor Elaine A. Pluta, a longtime public servant and Holyoke's first woman mayor.

Xavier Bettel

Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Bettel (b. 1973) is at present the only openly gay world leader*. He became the first European Union Leader to enter into a same-sex marriage when he wed his civil partner, Gauthier Destanay, in May, 2015. Destanay, who works as an architect, comes from neighboring Belgium, and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel attended their wedding.

A native of Luxembourg, Bettel had become the youngest member of the Luxembourg Parliament at age 26 (1999). When he was sworn in as mayor of Luxembourg City in 2011, Destanay stood by his side. Continuing a meteoric political career, Bettel became Prime Minister of Luxembourg in 2013.

Bettel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Etienne Schneider (b. 1971) is also openly gay and married his partner, Jérôme Domange, earlier this year.

Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy, bordered by France, Germany and Belgium. The constitutional monarch is Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (b. 1955 – not gay!), who has the power to appoint the prime minister and represent Luxembourg’s interests in foreign affairs. Bettel with Grand Duke Henri (below):

Trivia: Bettel’s mother is the grand niece of Russian composer/pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. 

*Bettel (b. 1973) is the third openly gay world leader. Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo left office in October, 2014, and Iceland’s Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir left office in May, 2013. That leaves Bettel as the only gay leader still in office.

In 1997 President Bill Clinton appointed openly gay James C. Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. Although Hormel was eminently qualified for the post and quickly won approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was subjected to an ugly confirmation battle during which he was defamed and belittled by homophobic GOP senators such as Jesse Helms and John Ashcroft. His nomination was effectively blocked by Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who refused to schedule a vote. Finally, two years later, in May 1999, to the outrage of some Republicans, Clinton named Hormel ambassador via a “recess appointment.” Hormel thus became the first openly gay ambassador to represent the United States. That was the same year (still closeted) Xavier Bettel became the youngest member of the Luxembourg parliament. 

Luxembourg, the second-wealthiest country after Qatar*, was ranked #14 overall by U.S. News when it published a 2016 list of the 25 “best countries” **. Luxembourg ranked No. 1 in Open for Business and No. 10 in Quality of Life. Luxembourg is a major center for large private banking, and its finance sector is the largest contributor to its economy.

*GDP per capita $88,000; Luxembourg was $81,000.

**There were nine categories, such as Heritage, Entrepreneurship, Cultural Influence, etc. The U.S. ranked #4 overall, Great Britain #3, Canada #2 and Germany #1.  

UPDATE:

Pope Francis Welcomes Bettel and Husband 

In March 2017 Pope Francis welcomed the world’s only openly gay leader and his husband to the Vatican. Catholic officials invited Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (center) and his husband Gauthier Destenay (left) to the Holy See, where they were met upon arrival by Georg Gänswein* (above right), the dashing German-born Archbishop who still serves as personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Bettel and Destenay joined other European heads of government for the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.  The treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), a major stepping stone to the establishment of the European Union (EU).

Bettel commented, “It was a great pleasure and honour for me and Gauthier to be welcomed by the leader of the Catholic Church.”

*60-year-old Gänswein rightfully earned the nickname “Gorgeous George” (Bel Giorgio). He appeared on the cover of the January 2013 Italian version of Vanity Fair magazine and was the inspiration for fashion designer Donatella Versace’s 2007 “Clergyman Collection.” For recreation the Archbishop plays tennis, flies airplanes and skis (he was once a ski instructor).

So there you have it.

Sources:
 
Joe Morgan (Gay Star News)
Wikipedia

Michael Lucas

Born in 1972 in Moscow, activist, columnist, documentary film-maker, lecturer, porn star and explicit gay film producer Michael Lucas (birth name Andrei Treivas) was raised in a secular Jewish family during the oppressive communist era. He was the target of anti-Semitism as a youth, and some of his ancestors had been killed in the Holocaust. His great-grandfather was a rabbi who was murdered in his own synagogue by the Nazis. Michael was given his mother's maiden name at birth specifically because Treivas sounded less Jewish than his father's surname, Bregman.

Lucas has an interesting back story. He earned a law degree from Moscow State Law Academy in 1994, after which he owned and operated a travel agency. Three years later he was living in New York city, with stops in Germany and France along the way. Treivas began his porn career in Munich by working in straight films, but while in France he began an association with Jean-Daniel Cadinot in gay porn. By the age of 25 Andrei Treivas became an exclusive porn actor for Falcon Studios, who, without his counsel or permission, had given him an Americanized name – Michael Lucas. Nevertheless, he had greater ambition than being a porn star, and he got lucky. He was awarded  a green card through a lottery system.

In 2004 he became a citizen of the United States, and in 2009 took dual citizenship with Israel. The following year he renounced his Russian citizenship as a protest against Russian homophobia and anti-Semitism.

With money earned from working as a male escort, Lucas started his own gay porn production company in New York in 1998. Lucas Entertainment is now a leader in the adult entertainment industry, having produced more than 300 films. His production company employs fifteen people who work in a midtown Manhattan office rented for nearly $20,000 a month, and Michael’s home apartment boasts original Robert Mapplethorpe art on the walls. To say that this immigrant has achieved success is understatement.

In 2000 Lucas moved his Jewish grandparents to New York, and one of the first things he did was take them to see the giant menorah in Central Park, so that they could witness that it had not been vandalized. He wanted to share with them the unbelievable freedoms Americans have.

In 2008 he married his partner of eight years, Richard Winger, a businessman and president emeritus of New York’s LGBT Center. In 2014 Lucas announced that they had divorced.

As a columnist for Out, The Advocate, Huffington Post and Pink News, Michael’s reputation is controversial, and his writing is highly opinionated and outspoken. Speaking regularly at universities such as Stanford, Yale, and Oxford, he discusses social, political, and sexual issues. Lucas has been on the cover of hundreds of magazines worldwide and has been profiled in many mainstream publications ranging from New York magazine to The New Republic.

In 2012 he wrote, produced and directed a documentary titled Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land, which extols the tolerance of the Israeli State. A second documentary was made in 2014, Campaign of Hate – Russia and Gay Propaganda. Both received critical acclaim and have been presented at numerous film festivals.

As the gay news magazine The Advocate wrote, “Michael Lucas has used the stardom porn gave him as a platform to speak out against drugs, unsafe sex, child exploitation, anti-Semitism, religious oppression of gays, and a host of other social problems. Bold, honest, and passionately opinionated, Lucas continues to challenge conventional thinking in all of his pursuits.”

(Sources: MichaelLucas.com, vice.com, The Advocate, Wikipedia)