GAVIN NEWSOM WANTS my queer vote. –His people have been out lately tabling in the Castro District, trying to promote their candidate in my queer neighborhood. They want me to think that as a queer man I will benefit from Newsom being our next mayor. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1999 Robert Haaland, Jerry Threet, and myself took to the streets of the Castro with petitions calling for Tom Ammiano to run for mayor. Our neighborhood was ground zero, along with the Mission District, for gentrification that was destroying our city: rents were skyrocketing, long-term tenants with AIDS were being evicted, homelessness was increasing. Our petition drive in May of that year resulted in Ammiano throwing his hat into the race, and within three weeks, landing in a runoff against incumbent mayor Willie Brown. Although he didn't win, he garnered enough votes to make him a powerful force on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Four years later I still support Ammiano for mayor. Though it's fashionable in some left circles to bash Tom, here are 10 reasons why I, as a radical queer antiwar activist and a Green, think San Francisco needs a queer progressive mayor, specifically Ammiano.

1. A regime change is in order. Newsom is Brown's chosen successor to the throne. Imagine four more years of the rich pillaging San Francisco.

2. During the dot-com boom, when longtime tenants with AIDS, people of color, and artists were being evicted from the city to make way for higher-income renters from Silicon Valley, Ammiano supported anti-gentrification efforts, including Proposition L. He was there with us out on the streets fighting against displacement when many other politicians ran the other way.

3. Ammiano was the first supervisor to open his door to activists in the Castro who wanted to open a shelter for homeless queer youth. I know because I was the person who organized the first meeting to discuss the idea.

4. Ammiano spoke at rallies against war long before it became fashionable. And he supported every antiwar resolution that came before the board. Newsom voted against the first antiwar resolution. In fact, Newsom's voting record is generally closer to Sup. Tony Hall's than it is to Sup. Chris Daly's.

5. Though some people like to blame Ammiano for homelessness, they forget that Newsom supporter Brown was where the buck stopped these past eight years – and what did he do? Ammiano supports the only comprehensive plan to tackle homelessness in San Francisco: Continuum of Care. While some may criticize Ammiano for not doing enough, what has Newsom done other than author Care Not Cash, which only targets a small number of homeless people on General Assistance? Most homeless people are not even on G.A., so they'll never be impacted by it.

6. Ammiano has been a longtime supporter of the unions and of workers.

7. With Ammiano as mayor, we stand a chance of getting a living wage and guaranteed health care for all San Franciscans.

8. Ammiano has stood with tenants, helping to pass protections against owner move-in evictions in 1998 and brokering a 50-50 deal on capital-improvement pass-throughs (2003) after the courts struck down Proposition H, which eliminated such pass-throughs. Without Ammiano, tenants would still be facing 100 percent pass-throughs.

9. Ammiano does not have ties to the rich and powerful, to downtown interests, and to the very forces that have pillaged this town for years.

10. Ammiano has been outspoken since Fajitagate in holding the police accountable for what goes on in the San Francisco Police Department.

For these reasons and more, isn't it time we elected Ammiano mayor of San Francisco?