Summary
BEST PLACES TO LIVE
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Extract
Where we live: as the country opens its arms to openly gay and lesbian people, the places we call home have grown beyond urban gay ghettos. The Advocate welcomes you to this new American landscape.
As they walk arm in arm across a downtown street toward the entrance of a popular bar, Maggie Ryan and Melanie Moore could be an advertisement for cosmopolitan gay life. They're decked out in tight jeans, designer boots, and fitted black overcoats, their entire look and attitude screaming urban lesbian chic. But this is far from an urban setting.
"You have to see Cowgirl Bar & Grill," Ryan says as we approach a house-like structure with a small courtyard that looks more like a Mexican restaurant than a nightclub. "This place is great." Inside, a dense mix of people--gay, straight, urban hipster, and rancher boy--listen to a local pop musician pour his soul into a microphone at one end of the room. Just beyond, a lively crowd shoots pool in a small lounge. A group of women--some wearing cowboy hats that barely hide their buzz cuts--emerges from a dining room on the other side of the bar. This is the heart of Santa Fe right here," Moore says proudly. Like so many of the city's residents, Moore, 34, and Ryan, 27, came from more urban places to this high-elevation town of incredible natural beauty nestled against New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Santa Fe, they say, "is the best place" they've lived. It's a place for mavericks and misfits. "And as far as being gay, it's completely integrated," Moore says. "We hold hands everywhere." Integrated. That's how out gays and lesbians across the country portray their city or town when asked why it's a great place to live. During a time when gay people are coming out at younger ages, many cities outside of the traditional urban gay centers have become important examples of this subtle ingredient of positive change. "As society becomes more accepting, the need for intense gay enclaves begins to dissipate," says Gary Gates, 45, a demographer who studies LGBT po...See the full content of this document
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