Bevan Dufty, a gay candidate running for mayor of San Francisco, released his first television campaign ad this morning, which features his daughter, five-year-old Sidney Maely Goldfader Dufty. Sources close to the campaign tell The Huffington Post they believe this is the first time a campaign ad has ever shown an LGBT candidate's child.
In the ad, Dufty and his daughter take a ride on the San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI) while in a voice over the candidate says, "I ride MUNI everyday. I enjoy it most when I'm with Sidney. She doesn't notice that it's too crowded or that it can run a half-hour late… Sidney thinks Muni is magic… I want all of us to see it that way."
If Dufty is elected, he will be the first openly gay mayor in San Francisco's history.
The mayoral candidate and his daughter are no strangers to making headlines. In 2006 Dufty was at the center of a controversy surrounding the birth of Sidney. A San Francisco anchorman, Pete Wilson, used his KGO-AM radio show to criticize Dufty and his friend, Rebecca Goldfader, for having their daughter without being involved in a romantic relationship.
"The Dufty-Goldfader baby is, in my mind, a travesty. Or a potential travesty. Perhaps that's a better way of saying it," Wilson said. "At some point, there is a limit to how far we stretch the self-indulgent search for the alternative that we have been involved in the last 30 or 40 years in this country."
Though many called for Wilson to lose his job, Dufty responded to Wilson in an email saying, "In no way do I want to see you resign or lose your position over this incident. It troubles me that we live in a time of disposability. In other words, that people in public life, press, etc., make a mistake and then have no choice but to resign. I make mistakes and will undoubtedly make them in the future. I try to admit to them and learn from them."
Eventually Wilson, who died of a heart attack in 2007, apologized for his "inappropriate comments" and his job was spared.