18 Facts About Tom Ammiano

Tom Ammiano was born on December 15,1941 and is an American politician and LGBT rights activist from San Francisco, California.

Tom Ammiano had previously been a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had mounted an unsuccessful bid for mayor of San Francisco in 1999.

Tom Ammiano was succeeded as California's Assemblyman for District 17 by San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu on December 1,2014.

Tom Ammiano grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, part of a working-class family of Italian Americans.

Tom Ammiano attended Immaculate Conception High School, graduating in 1959.

Tom Ammiano competed successfully on the school's track team and earned a varsity letter that he never received, apparently because he was perceived to be gay, an experience that he described as "humiliating".

Tom Ammiano attended Seton Hall University, earning a bachelor's degree in communication in 1963.

Tom Ammiano was opposed to the Vietnam War and from 1966 to 1968 was an English teacher in a small town in South Vietnam, serving with a Quaker development group.

Tom Ammiano came out publicly as a gay man in a news conference that year, and became one of the first public-school teachers in San Francisco to do so.

In 1980 and 1988, Tom Ammiano ran for the San Francisco Board of Education, and was elected in 1990.

Tom Ammiano was elected its vice-president in 1991, and then president in 1992.

Tom Ammiano was the main architect of the city's Domestic Partners Ordinance, which provides equal benefits to employees and their unmarried domestic partners.

In 1999, Tom Ammiano came into conflict with San Francisco's Roman Catholic community when the Board of Supervisors, at Tom Ammiano's request, granted the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a charity group of drag queen nuns, a street-closure permit for Castro Street for their 20th anniversary celebration on Easter Sunday.

Tom Ammiano introduced Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, to the California State Assembly.

Tom Ammiano introduced a bill in a subsequent Assembly to create a new statewide entity within the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to regulate and license medical marijuana in California, arguing that a patchwork of local regulations had led to the proliferation of both "legitimate and illegitimate operations" in the state.

Tom Ammiano walked out yelling that Schwarzenegger could "kiss my gay ass".

Curbo died of complications from AIDS in 1994, days before Tom Ammiano was elected supervisor.

Tom Ammiano portrayed himself in a paid cameo appearance in the film Milk, reenacting one of his protests of the Briggs Initiative.