Gay candidate Colin Lovett is running his campaign Harvey Milk style

Colin Lovett is a problem solver.

The gay 41-year-old Democratic candidate has an undergrad degree in mathematics, a master’s in business administration, and a professional career spanning regulatory rate optimization and corporate pharmacy benefit management.

With a knack for numbers, he’s all about finding the most elegant solution to complicated problems.

He’ll find plenty in the Missouri Legislature if he’s elected the next state rep from District 100 in St. Louis. Lovett says Jefferson City is mired in dysfunction.

While his CV may sound dry, the married girl dad brings passion rooted in Midwest values – like hard work, devotion to family, and humility – to both his long list of civic contributions and his candidacy.

He can still rattle off the Boy Scouts’ creed in seconds flat.

Lovett spoke from his home office in Ballwin, a suburb on the west side of St. Louis, in the same house where he listened to and learned from his grandfather’s stories of “fighting the good fight.”

LGBTQ Nation: You lost your race for the same seat you’re running for two years ago against the same candidate, Rep. Philip Oehlerking, by less than 200 votes. What’s changed between then and now, and why do you think you’re going to prevail in the rematch?

Colin Lovett: Last time around, I was a first-time candidate, so you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re drinking from the fire hose, trying to learn how to be a good candidate. You’re building name recognition and ID throughout the district. A lot of the people that are voting have never heard your name. So we spent a ton of time and effort in that first cycle getting our name out there and making the introduction of who am I and why am I good for the district. We came that close, and we’ve basically not stopped campaigning since then.

I come from the Harvey Milk school of politics of run, and if you don’t succeed, run, and then run again. This next iteration, it’s been so exciting, because now as we go door to door, people will say, “Oh yeah, I remember you. I voted for you in ’22, and I’m voting for you again.” Or when we get to tell them how close this race was, they’re shocked. “I had no idea that this race was that close.” And we get the opportunity to describe how consequential these state legislature races are. We’re only three seats away from breaking the Republican supermajority in the House. It was six seats in 2022.

Of 26,500 registered voters, there were 10,000 people that didn’t cast a vote in 2022, at least for the state rep race. And we only lost by 181. We’ve had a lot of success in educating our voters on those things. We’re going to bring them home this time.

You haven’t mentioned your opponent. What about his performance in the last couple of years?

So about my opponent, one of the hallmarks of my campaign is we have really tried to do a good job at telling our voters what I’m going to bring to the district and what I want to do, and not disparaging and striking him down. But I will say, he has a record now, and he is pretty extreme on the issues.

He voted alongside the Republican super-majority to make it more difficult for ballot initiatives to pass, to restrict reproductive freedom, access to health care. He’s been a big proponent of privatizing public education in the state. It’s disguised under parental rights and freedom, but they’re going to gut public education dollars to put them into private religious and parochial schools and charter schools.

Missourians will be voting in November on a ballot initiative called Amendment 3, which would enshrine the right to abortion in Missouri’s constitution. Is Donald Trump right that everything is working out fine for women in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade?

Absolutely not. Providers are so terrified of the draconian laws that have been put into effect that they won’t provide the healthcare services women need, so people are forced to travel across state lines, and that leads to severe health complications up to and including death, and it’s just horrible.

We need to make sure that we are giving people the freedom to make healthcare decisions about their own bodies, and that includes issues around pregnancy and healthcare around abortion, but also around our trans community and being able to make decisions about our bodies in that way, too. The government really just needs to stay the hell out of the way.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley — who memorably ran out of the Capitol on January 6 after fist-pumping to a crowd of election-denying protesters on his way in — attended a rally a few weeks ago and conflated Amendment 3 with kids getting “sex change operations” in schools. Afterward, a spokesman confirmed that Hawley was making a false argument that reproductive health care encompasses transgender care. What do the tactics say about Hawley’s character?

I think at this point we’re starting to see Hawley, and not just him, but other candidates in our state, afraid that they’re going to lose their seats, and they’re going to say whatever they need to fear monger. And, yeah, it’s a complete lie.

What are the details in Amendment 3 that he’s making that connection with?

You’ll have to ask him.

In July, a St. Louis circuit court judge slapped down the Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s nefarious investigation into transgender children’s medical records. Bailey claimed, based on false testimony provided by a notorious anti-trans activist, that Washington University in St. Louis “systematically pressured or deceived parents and insurance providers into purchasing irreversible gender transition interventions.” The implication was that the school and others associated with gender-affirming care are doing it for the money. With that road blocked, where do you think Bailey’s next battle will be in his culture war on trans people?

If only I could predict the future, right?

I mean, for one, I really would love to see our candidate for attorney general, Elad Gross, defeat Andrew Bailey and become an actually good attorney general, where we don’t have these attacks lobbed on our trans kiddos and our trans community.

I don’t know where Bailey’s going to go next. I mean, there seems to be a lot of attempts to just completely antagonize the trans community in every way possible, from access to health care to being able to play sports in schools. What else could they go after? They could go after housing and public accommodations. I mean, there just seems to be an all-out war on the trans community.

There was recently some excitement around a local gym and a person who identifies as trans not being able to use the facilities that they needed to. At the Department of Revenue, there was a form that you could access to be able to legally change your gender. All of a sudden, that form was gone from the website.

It just seems like the leadership in the state, which right now is controlled by pretty extreme anti-trans people, are coming for whatever they can. That’s really not what Missourians are like. It’s just what, unfortunately, we have elected in our leadership right now.

Video just surfaced of failed anti-LGBTQ+ Missouri candidate for secretary of state Valentina Gomez dancing with the gays at a New Year’s Eve party last year in New York, to a DJ set from Drag Race alum Aquaria. She replied to one publication saying, it’s “impossible to walk around New York City without running into a mentally ill f**got.” You’re not a doctor, but how would you diagnose someone like Gomez?

Well, in honor of it being Mean Girls Day, I would say she doesn’t even go here (laughing). If you look at what the election results showed, she was widely unpopular, and it’s easy to get on camera and just shout a bunch of inflammatory nonsense, and she certainly got some attention, but the values of Missouri did not align with her candidacy. Maybe she should think about other things than running to serve the people of Missouri.

You’re for low taxes, a balanced budget, Second Amendment rights, increased funding for police and religious freedom protections. How do you describe your politics, and have you ever voted Republican?

I have never voted Republican, but if we really came down to a scenario where we had fascist leaders in the Democratic Party, I would consider voting for the right person rather than a party.

I have an eight-year-old who is in public schools, and every time she goes to school, I worry about gun safety and school shootings. We need to enact some of the low-hanging fruit gun laws to be able to make our schools and public places safer. But we’re a Second Amendment state. We own guns. We like to be able to protect our households.

In order to be pro-LGBTQ and equality, you don’t have to be against balanced budgets and being smart with the money. We should be smart with our public tax dollars and try and keep taxes as low as possible while funding some of the critical public services that our government provides.

It’s really about having leadership there to be able to make those balanced, nuanced decisions and make sure that we’re being responsible, but also providing care and service to the people who need it the most. That’s one of the reasons government is there. You know, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

As you mentioned, the Missouri Legislature is overwhelmingly red, and there’s probably zero chance either chamber will flip Democrat in this year’s election. One of your policy goals is pushing through the Missouri Non-Discrimination Act (MONA), which would bar discrimination in the state based on sexual orientation and gender identity and hasn’t been taken up by Republicans. With little chance that bill and other legislation you support will pass, how do you view your role in Jefferson City if you’re elected?

When people are running for office, they have to align with their party on their messaging. Once you get elected and get into office, you find that you can work with those people. And I really look forward to using my ability to work with people from all walks of life, some that I agree with, some that I don’t agree with on everything, to be able to make progress for Missourians.

As it relates to MONA, you can be fired in Missouri for being gay or trans. You can be denied housing for those same reasons, too. MONA has been brought up in every legislative session since the year 2000 or 2001. In the last few years, we’ve gotten really close. The challenge is that if the Speaker of the House doesn’t deem it to be something that can be taken up for a floor vote, it just dies. But we’ve progressively, throughout the years, gotten a little closer each time. It’ll require a bipartisan effort and working together to make sure that we can get it teed up and across the finish line.

I think it’s fair to call you super civically engaged. You’re running for office, you’re president of your homeowners association, you’ve served on the boards of the LGBT Center of St. Louis and with the St. Louis Civic Orchestra and lots of other organizations. Who or what do you credit for your civic-mindedness?

I caught the bug from my grandfather. He enlisted after Pearl Harbor was attacked, like, literally, the next day, and he was the head of the military police unit that guarded the Little Rock Nine in 1957 at Central High School. I was educated by him and his stories of fighting the good fight.

The other thing I’ll say about that is, for me, it was Harvey Milk. When I came out in my 20s, I was kind of oblivious to LGBT history. Then I saw the film Milk and I was just stunned at how much history there had been in our community, and I just threw myself into community service and jumped into every LGBT org that I could, to just do what I could to continue to fight. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. We just saw that in the dog whistle from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the Dobbs decision. It’s an important reminder that we’ve come a long way, but we can’t take it for granted.

I interview a lot of LGBTQ+ candidates and electeds and not all of them advertise their identity the way you do. In particular, candidates will be forthcoming about their gender and sexuality in conversation, and happily accept strategic support and an endorsement from groups like the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, but then it’s hard to find much evidence on the front door to their campaign — their website — that they’re a member of the same community. You, on the other hand, are front and center with your identity, with video of you and your husband walking your dogs through your neighborhood right on your splash page. What’s your calculation of the value of identity in your campaign, and why doesn’t every LGBTQ+ candidate share it the way you do?

I can’t speak to everyone else and why they do or don’t. I mean, it’s kind of like coming out. Everyone has to go through that journey on their own time and when it’s the most right for them. But to me, it was really important to be completely honest and transparent about that. Here’s my family, here’s my husband, here’s our daughter. It’s part of who I am.

And so we put it on our literature. It’s on my website. It’s everywhere I go, and I don’t lead with LGBT issues, but it’s ingrained in who I am as a person, and it’s certainly part of my history and advocacy and how I got involved. And it really goes back to that Harvey Milk thing, right? “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” and being present. And if they know us, they vote for us, 10 to one.

What’s the single most important thing the world should do to address the climate crisis?

Accept that it’s real.

You were an Eagle Scout. What did membership in the Scouts teach you that you’ve brought to your public service and life in general, and is there a place for a single-sex group for kids — like the Boy Scouts of America was when you were growing up — in society today?

Interesting question. Being an Eagle Scout, I think the first thing that always comes to mind for that is it’s like cheerful service with a smile, right? It’s service to my community, doing the right thing. I mean, I could rattle off that a scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent” (laughing). But it’s true, and you live those values, and you just incorporate it into what you do. I got to learn how to survive in the woods. That was certainly fun, all the way down to some Lord of the Flies situations (laughing), but, you know, trying not to burn down the woods.

Those values shouldn’t be exclusive to boys. The Girl Scouts equally have great leadership programs and skills, but they’re different organizations. I think that people who identify as male should be able to join Girl Scouts of America, and I think people who identify as females should be able to join formerly-known-as Boy Scouts of America. And everybody in between. They’re just good programs.

Would you support national mandatory service for young people in the military or some other form of public service of their choosing, like the Peace Corps or Teach for America?

Maybe mandatory. Maybe not, but maybe incentivized. You know, it’s such a good experience and opportunity for people to serve their community. I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about it in depth, but maybe an exchange of service for benefit. That could be a start. I’ll think about that.

You’re a gun owner. What’s the gun and what do you use it for?

We have guns to be able to protect our house if somebody breaks in. I’ll just leave it at that. Don’t break into my house.

What can you tell us about your husband? How did you meet, and who proposed to whom?

As so many couples do, we met online, and I proposed to him. It was funny, because I was planning on proposing in Florida, and he was on a work trip, so I was planning on bringing the ring down and all of that. Well, then come to find out his parents were also joining us on this trip, so I had to find a way to sneak away from the parents to be able to propose, and then I got in really big trouble because I didn’t ask for permission ahead of time. But it was really great. We got the beachside proposal, and he said yes on the first ask.

Donald Trump says he’ll be a dictator on “day one” if he wins the presidency a second time. What’s your plan for day one if you win your race in November?

I will be making lots of phone calls. Unlike being President of the United States, being a state representative doesn’t give me a lot of unilateral power. So it’s going to be understanding the makeup of the Missouri legislature, forging relationships with other state representatives and lawmakers to understand where we can make tangible progress, and finding the folks that I can work with to champion some of our legislative priorities and make sure we get stuff done.

The last Missouri legislative session was one of the most dysfunctional, unproductive sessions that we’ve had to date, just because of all the infighting and the disagreement. I think we can be better than that.

What are you most looking forward to if you’re elected to represent the constituents of Missouri District 100?

Yeah, I mean really, it’s doing the job.

My goal goes back to that Boy Scout thing, right? Cheerful service with a smile — doing whatever I can in the capacity of my office to be as good of a public servant as I can be.