LGBT milestone: Tammy Baldwin first openly gay U.S. senator

In what could be the first of what could be several LGBT milestones tonight, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, is projected to be the first openly lesbian U.S. senator.

She did it by defeating Tommy Thompson, the former four-term Wisconsin GOP governor and former George W. Bush cabinet member who is immensely popular in the Badger State.

Neither Baldwin nor Thompson made her sexual orientation an issue in the campaign. But as Baldwin, a seven-term congresswoman, told The Guardian recently:

“If you are not in the room, the conversation is about you,” she said. “If you are in the room, the conversation is with you. We never had an openly LGBT member of the U.S. Senate, and even though there are strong pro-equality allies who serve there, it has always been a conversation about a group of people. So this changes everything.”

As for the same-sex marriage measures on the ballot in Maryland, Maine and Washington state, they’re so close that the results may not be known tonight.

Joe Garofoli