Anyone who has been following the coverage of the U.S. election over the past few weeks could be excused for thinking that Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation was one of the primary issues in the presidential election. But the Mary Cheney brouhaha is actually the exception to the rule in press coverage of local and state elections across the U.S. this time. Most coverage of LGBT candidates has avoided focusing on their sexual orientation, showing how far most of America has come in terms of accepting homosexuality. Even in the few campaigns where sexual orientation has cropped up, the press coverage would seem to indicate that a candidate’s sexual orientation is simply not as important to voters as their position on the issues that affect them locally.

According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based political group that supports the election of LGBT candidates, 28 Victory Fund-endorsed candidates have good chances of winning their races this Tuesday. These include all three openly gay U.S. House of Representatives incumbents, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.).

Democrat Julia Boseman, running for North Carolina State Senate, is one of the few openly lesbian candidates this fall to encounter negative attacks because of her sexual orientation. Ads paid for by the North Carolina Republican Party in support of State Senator Woody White, who was appointed to office after the previous incumbent resigned to run for governor, focus on Boseman’s sexual orientation and declare that if she is elected she will pursue “a liberal, activist homosexual agenda.”

In a truly positive sign of progress toward greater acceptance of homosexuality in the U.S., White’s local newspaper, the Star-News, pulled its endorsement of his candidacy after the ads were printed. According to the Star-News’s editorial, “Until he allowed these ads to be circulated, Mr. White seemed the more promising candidate. But now a vote for him would be a vote for intolerance and dirty politics.” The editorial goes on to state:

Although the Star-News did not endorse Julia Boseman, its decision to pull its support from Woody White shows that attacking someone based on their sexual orientation is no longer acceptable—and the Star-News’s actions are certainly to be applauded.

Sexual orientation can intersect with a candidate’s work in elected office, however, as a bitter campaign in southern California shows. Cynthia Matthews, a 41-year-old Democrat and environmental activist, is challenging 12-term Republican incumbent David Dreier for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing California’s District 26 just north of Los Angeles. Their contest, which has focused mainly on illegal immigration issues, unexpectedly turned to sexual orientation when Dreier refused to reveal whether he was gay on a radio interview.

Dreier, a conservative who has repeatedly voted against gay rights (including federal medical coverage for AIDS patients), has been followed by rumors that he is gay for some time. Matthews, who is openly lesbian, told the Washington Blade last week that she’s not critical of him because he’s gay, but because “he’s a hypocrite.” Although it is not at all certain that Matthews will be able to win this race, given the district’s large Republican majority, the coverage of Dreier’s alleged homosexuality in combination with Matthews’s openness about her own sexual orientation shows us just how much has changed in the course of the last two decades. It’s clear that being closeted is no longer a necessity, and may even be a handicap.

As Matthews explained to The Advocate last month, “Anybody who’s ever known me knows I am out. On my Web site I say I support gays and lesbians. They call my office and ask, ‘Are you gay?’ and I say ‘Yes,’ and they say, ‘Oh.’ It’s a nonissue.” By frankly acknowledging that she is a lesbian, Matthews and other openly gay candidates easily defuse what can become a prickly issue if a candidate stays closeted. The recent outing and resignation of New Jersey’s Governor James McGreevey shows just how damaging remaining in the closet can be to a political career.

An Idaho State Congressional campaign shows that being openly gay can even be an advantage, particularly after the state’s recent divisive battles over an anti-gay-marriage initiative. In Idaho’s liberal District 19, which includes the capitol city of Boise, openly lesbian Nicole LeFavour, a Democrat, is running against GOP candidate Alicia Cassarino. If elected, 40-year-old LeFavour would be the state’s first openly gay elected state representative. A former lobbyist for the Idaho Community Action Network, LeFavour testified against the state’s anti-gay-marriage bill last winter, which passed in the Idaho House but was stymied in the Senate.

In an interesting twist, particularly because of Idaho’s strong Republican base, the sponsor of the anti-gay-marriage bill, Rep. Henry Kulczyk, was voted out of the Republican primary by voters in his district earlier this year. Speaking to the Twin Falls Times-News, LeFavour notes, “I think, in light of seeing how out of touch some (lawmakers) were then, some people thought it was time to have somebody to represent the gay community in the Legislature.”

Lesbians and gay men aren’t the only queer people seeking public office in the U.S.; transgender candidates are also making themselves known in local elections. In San Francisco, 40-year-old female-to-male transgender Robert Haaland, a Democrat, is running for the position of San Francisco Supervisor. In Arizona, male-to-female transgender Democrat Amanda Simpson is running for the State House of Representatives. Either Haaland or Simpson could be the first openly transgender official elected to public office in the U.S.

Although Tom Murphy of the Rapids City, South Dakota City Council recently came out as transgender, he has not yet begun transitioning and will not be running for reelection. Internationally, Georgina Beyer of the New Zealand Parliament is the only transgender office holder in the world.

Robert Haaland is a frontrunner in a 22-candidate Supervisor race to represent the Haight/Ashbury district, which is one of San Francisco’s most ethnically and economically diverse. Although Haaland has not made any secret of the fact that he is transgender, he has also received very little criticism because of it. An article about Haaland in the Sacramento Bee published in September echoes the general sense of acceptance of Haaland’s transgender identity, declaring, “Robert Haaland is a transgender person. It doesn’t matter in the race for supervisor in S.F.”

That’s the most exciting thing about the LGBT candidates running for office: in general, their sexual orientation or gender identity simply doesn’t matter when it comes to media coverage. Local coverage has been consistently fair to these candidates, and when they report about their sexual orientation, they avoid the drama and hyperbole that has surrounded the recent political mess about Mary Cheney.

If all politics is local, then this election coverage proves that we’re clearly moving in the right direction.

Post-Election Update: Julia Boseman has been elected the first openly gay State Senator of North Carolina, Nicole LeFavour the first openly gay State Representative in Idaho, and Tammy Baldwin has kept her congressional seat in Wisconsin.

Cynthia Matthews was defeated in California, and both transgender candidates—Robert Haaland and Amanda Simpson—were defeated, although all three received a respectable percentage of the votes in their respective elections.

In related news, newly elected Dallas County sherriff Lupe Valdez has now become the first openly Latina lesbian sheriff in the U.S., and Portland, Oregon mayoral candidate Tom Potter, whom we mentioned in a previous article as a candidate who is publicly supportive of his openly gay daughter, easily defeated his opponent to become the new mayor of Portland.