Lupe Valdez may not ever be governor of Texas, but her victory in the Democratic primary this week has already secured her a place in Texas history, and in the hearts of many Texans who see in her improbable success a remarkable validation of themselves that would have seemed outlandishly far-fetched not very long ago.

Just 15 years ago, Valdez and people like her were considered criminals in Texas and 13 other states. That summer, the Supreme Court revisited its 1986 ruling that gave states permission to arrest and jail gay people for simply loving one another even, in many cases, in the privacy of their homes. In 2003, the court swung back to sanity and overturned its previous thinking.

Six months later, Valdez announced she was running for countywide office in Dallas, and for the chief law enforcement job, no less. She proudly said she was gay, and then proceeded to run her campaign as if that didn't matter. She won and was re-elected three times before retiring last year to announce her campaign for the biggest office in the state.

She acted all that time as if it didn't matter, her being gay, but of course it did. America, and Texas especially, was just getting used to the idea of gay people stepping out of the shadows and signing on for public roles.

By 2003, millions of Americans who weren't straight had already stopped hiding. The AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s had helped speed that process in devastating ways, as many gay people found they had incredible reserves of courage.

Valdez was different as an out lesbian offering herself for public service not as an activist, but as a law enforcement officer just like anyone else in uniform. That she was also a Latina, the daughter of migrant workers and a retired border patrol agent, all made her story more impressive. Dallas voters, to their great credit, accepted her offer.

Others would follow. In 2007 I was sent over to Gilley's to wait for the returns in the mayoral runoff between council member Ed Oakley, who is openly gay, and businessman Tom Leppert.

As we waited, I made friends with an elderly couple who were enthusiastic members of Team Leppert. A dentist and his wife, they were well-read civic enthusiasts of the very best kind. They told me they were for Leppert because Dallas was a businessman's town, and they knew he could get things done.

But as the night wore on, with conversations veering from family to favorite books and all the other things one discusses to pass the time, a different line of thinking emerged from the dentist. After the counting was done, and Leppert was the winner, he took his wife's hand and looked at me. I've never forgotten what he said.

"That was close," he said. "A gay mayor. In Dallas! Can you imagine? We'd be the laughingstock of America."

I'd go on to write about gay rights as a legal correspondent for many years. The assignment put me in contact with all kinds of brilliant people, especially prelates, seminary presidents and preachers, who eloquently explained to me why they saw gay marriage as a threat to civilization.

Once, in Washington, I was on the phone with the Catholic Church's top voice on marriage, an archbishop who'd later become president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, and I asked him about the gay people he kept saying deserved compassion and tolerance but not acceptance. Had he ever had a gay person in his home or in the chancery?

"Well," he told me, "I'm sure I have. But we don't ask everyone we meet whether they are gay."

I said, no, I mean, have you ever reached out to any of the gay Catholics in your diocese? Have you asked them over for dinner to hear how they feel when you say their sexuality is deserving of sympathy, like an illness? I bet they don't hear as much charity in those words as you do.

No, he told me, he hadn't had the opportunity. And it seemed to me that there, again, was that subtle bigotry that sleeps behind the politeness, the erudition and the gentility of people like the old dentist in Dallas.

Those were the things I was thinking of this week when Texas Democrats made Valdez the first openly gay gubernatorial nominee from a major party. I was proud, because I remember when it was illegal for me to love my partner. It was just a few years ago. I remember the silence with which homosexuality was always dealt with in the otherwise loving home I was raised in, and in my school and in my church. It was a playground put-down or it wasn't mentioned at all.

Maybe what I felt most of all was relief. Here, at last, is proof that voters just don't care very much. Others have made a similar argument. How surprising, really, is it that in 2018 an openly gay Latina can beat out a son of the former governor?

All that discrimination, it's all history isn't it? Maybe, but none of this is really over. Not when transgender Texans are hassled by school districts and legislators. Not when the Supreme Court is weighing the free-speech rights of cake makers who can't get on board with gay marriage.

But whether Valdez, who acknowledged she has more than $12,000 in unpaid property taxes , becomes governor, her victory this week is a Texas milestone and it just might help us move past all that history we'd like to never repeat.

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