It was tough to watch what happened in Maine, but that painful loss is not the whole story of last night.  We’re winning Referendum 71 right now in Washington state, and voters in Kalamazoo overwhelmingly embraced equality in their city.  And of the 79 openly LGBT candidates the Victory Fund endorsed for 2009, 50 are winning their races as of this morning and another six have advanced to runoff elections.  (We’ll have a full Election Scorecard up soon.)

This was a year when LGBT candidates broke through in places they had never won before.  Now Detroit, Akron and St. Petersburg will have their first openly gay city councilmembers.  Chapel Hill, North Carolina elected an openly gay mayor and Canton, Ohio will now have an openly gay school board member.

Each of these victories is important.  They are real steps forward in communities that need LGBT voices in government.  These candidates now become community leaders who are open and honest about an important part of their lives, and that can change hearts, minds and even votes.

Last year the Victory Fund set a goal of helping Annise Parker become the next mayor of Houston, and the first openly LGBT mayor of one of America’s largest cities.  Last night she took a huge step toward victory, finishing first in a crowded field of candidates and heading to a final runoff election in mid-December.

I’m thrilled about this, but we can’t celebrate for long.  Annise’s six-week runoff campaign begins right now, and she’s going to need every resource our community can bring to the table to help her win.  You can help now here.

Attitudes about our equality are changing, even if sometimes the pace of change seems schizophrenic.  Elections bring good news and bad, but if we fixate on the bad news we can become paralyzed.  That’s not going to help us with the next battle in a war we have to win.

Chuck Wolfe is the president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.