This fall, on opposite coasts, two gay Asian Americans are running for local office. In the suburbs of Atlanta, we have Alex Wan who is running for City Council, District Six. Alex is the Director of Development for Jerusalem House, Atlanta's oldest and largest provider of permanent, supportive housing for homeless or low-income individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. He was also a candidate for the Georgia State Assembly back in 2004, but lost. From his bio:

Business acumen

•  Engineer by training with hands-on business, management and finance experience
•  Has balanced budgets, met payroll
•  Understands both the revenue and the expense side of challenges and solutions
•  Knows how to make difficult choices when resources are scarce

Wide breadth of long-time community service

•  Member of the Morningside Lenox Park Neighborhood Association; 15+ year Morningside resident
•  Morningside Lenox Park Association Business Liaison for 2008
•  Graduate of Leadership Atlanta and Leadership DeKalb, and chaired the latter
•  Serves on the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Development Authority (Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair)
•  Former Atlanta Volunteer Chair and Atlanta Federal Club (donor circle) Co-Chair for the Human Rights Campaign
•  Founded and served as the first president of an all-volunteer non-profit benefitting socio-economically disadvantaged children
•  On the board of the Asian American Heritage Foundation
•  Previously served on the Insurance Commissioner’s Better Georgia Executive Round Table and the Governor’s Small Business Advisory Council

I recently spoke with Alex and he'd love any financial support he can get. Check him out if you're interested.

Alex recently resigned from the Atlanta Development Authority Board to clear up any perception of a conflict of interest. In July, some district residents voiced concerns that Wan and Liz Coyle, one of his opponents in the Nov. 3 election, served on the ADA and Atlanta Beltline Inc. boards while also running for office. Coyle resigned from her post last week.

On the other side of the country, we have Democrat Republican Fred Chang who is running for re-election to the Port Orchard City Council. Chang, a self-professed "radical centrist", is actually a former Democrat who wrote extensively on why he switched parties. I am not sure where he stand today on such progressive issues as health care reform and immigration, but Fred recently received the endorsement of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. If the LGBT movement wants to build bridges with other progressive movements, they should be wary of supporting candidates who don't support other key planks of a progressive agenda.

UPDATED (9/6/09) - We just heard from Fred Chang who corrects us that he is actually a registered Democrat. In fact, Fred informs us that he is "an active member of the local state Democrats organizations.  I have also been endorsed by the Kitsap County Democrats, the 26th Legislative District Democrats and also the State Democrats." We erroneously attributed a different author's words as his. Our apologies.