Gay minister mulling school board run

Brett Webb-Mitchell wouldn’t be the first openly gay person to run for Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board. Gloria Faley broke that barrier some years ago. And she won.

But Webb-Mitchell, the author of “On Being a Gay Parent,” (also the name of his blog) and an ordained Presbyterian minister, says he is thinking about it.

His inspiration? Slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk.

“Yesterday I saw the movie ‘Milk,’ he writes. "The movie is a ‘must’ for not only those of us who are LGBTQ, and straight allies, but for all of those who need the inspiration of moving forward in speaking truth to power, especially in the day and times that the stress is greatest.”

Milk is believed to have been the first politician to win office as an out gay man (and it wasn’t easy, as the movie shows). There are now 600 in this country, including Orange County’s Mike Nelson (a county commissioner and former mayor of Carrboro) and Mark Kleinschmidt (a Chapel Hill Town Council member). Webb-Mitchell could make that three.

(UPDATE: make that four, per Jason Baker's comment below; Lydia Lavelle is a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.)

“I'm thinking of running for the School Board for Chapel Hill-Carrboro Community School System,” Webb-Mitchell writes. “Any campaign managers out there who read this blog?”