Politics: Anne of a Thousand Dreams

But Anne Dicker had a secret: She was attracted not only to men, but also to women. Not in a way, she says, that was experimental, fleeting, typically collegiate. At Middlebury, she forged relationships — sexual and emotional — with women, eventually trading in her memberships to the Newman and Right to Life clubs for the presidency of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender club. Despite being married to a man, she is still, she says, bisexual, and she takes offense at the suggestion that her attraction to women was “a phase,” or that she and her husband must have an open relationship.

“I married my husband because I loved him, and we are monogamous, like any other married couple,” she says. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not bisexual. It means that I made a decision to spend the rest of my life with the man I love. It is what it is.”

This stance might be guileless, but in outing herself when she ran for the State House two years ago, Dicker was also politically unsophisticated. She expected, given Philadelphia’s large gay population, that the news, at least among liberal factions, would make little difference. So she was shocked that Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News — and close friend of one Vince Fumo — seemed to go out of his way to thwart Dicker’s campaign, calling her in the press a “hack tool” and a Johnny-come-lately to the gay cause.

“It did anger me,” Dicker says. “It was mean-spirited. I had no idea Mark Segal would do that — I’d never even met him.”

Segal remains critical of Dicker, saying, “She’s had all this time to involve herself and get something on her résumé, and we have nothing but zero. Vince Fumo has an incredible record, and Anne Dicker has a zero record, other than saying she is a bisexual.”

It isn’t clear how Dicker’s sexuality will affect her in her race against Fumo, who, despite calling a colleague a “faggot” on the floor of the Senate during a debate a few years ago, enjoys good relations with the gay community. Still, Dicker says she’s aware of polling, commissioned by Fumo, that asks voters about her bisexuality, a thinly veiled way for him to bring the subject up without making it an overt issue.

She is, nevertheless, unworried. She is not jaded. Dicker believes she has a legitimate shot at beating Fumo — friends say even in private, she expresses only optimism — and asserts, “The only thing holding us back is our own insecurities.” She seems genuinely to believe this.

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