In keeping with San Diego Pride’s newly established tradition of selecting local grand marshals to lead its annual parade, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who won the majority of the vote in her bid to defeat Paul Pfingst last year, seemed an obvious choice.

As the first openly gay or lesbian DA in the country, Dumanis’ election made national headlines, being covered by news outlets from Planetout.com to The New York Times.

“It is a great honor and I’m very touched by the symbolism of it,” Dumanis told the Gay and Lesbian Times about being chosen as one of three grand marshals for this weekend’s parade. In doing so, she is following in the footsteps of other local GLBT political leaders Toni Atkins and Chris Kehoe, who have been honored by San Diego Pride in the past. “We have someone representing each area of government. Toni is the city, Chris was with the city and now she is with the state, and I am with the county — so we have city, county and state governments covered here,” Dumanis said.

Unlike Kehoe and Atkins, whose races primarily involved the residents of Council District 3, which includes a large percentage of GLBT residents and a more liberal population, Dumanis had to win the vote of the entire county — by far a more conservative populace overall.

“I think what we have shown here in San Diego is that equality transcends the issue of sexual identity and that [people] can rise to any level they would like to,” Dumanis said. She feels her sexual orientation had little to do with why people voted for her, and that it had more to do with her track record. “I had a long history in the criminal justice system of being tough on crime as a prosecutor and a judge.”

Aside from major budget cutbacks, Dumanis said her transition into the DA’s office has been a smooth one — the fact that she is a lesbian has never really been an issue.

“Everybody’s treated me with great respect,” Dumanis said. “Being the DA of San Diego County is a leadership role in the state and that’s how I am treated.… I am someone who beat an incumbent in a very contested race so I have their respect just for that.”

Dumanis also brings a new perspective to GLBT politics in San Diego, being an active member of the Republican Party.

“I’m still going to the Republican things I go to and they have accepted me as the district attorney,” Dumanis said of her party affiliation. “I think there are some in the party that don’t like the idea of a gay district attorney, but they are learning how to live with it.”

In the broader political arena Dumanis said that her focus is on issues related to the criminal justice system and politicians that have an effect on her here at home.

“I have endorsed Chris Kehoe, and that’s primarily because of her stance on issues that are important to my office, because she can have an impact and can help in legislation,” Dumanis said. “I’ve also supported members of the board of supervisors because they deal with issues that affect me as well.”

With that in mind, Dumanis said she doesn’t have any plans to endorse any candidates, Democrat or Republican, at the national level.

“As the DA, I don’t think George Bush is going to ask for my endorsement,” she joked, but went on to say, “I have great respect for George Bush and I’m really not familiar with the way he has handled our issues. My issues that I deal with on a regular basis are criminal justice issues, and, with respect to his administration, I think there is a lot more than just our issues to be considered.”

On the subject of GLBT Republicans, the Times inquired if, as the highest ranking local elected official that happens to be both a lesbian and Republican, Dumanis was interested in working to establish a local chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group she has dealt with on a national level. In a city the size of San Diego that is noted as being a more conservative town, it is surprising to some that there isn’t a more vocal gay Republican group.

“I don’t think it’s that we don’t have gay Republicans,” Dumanis said. “I think we have a lot of gay Republicans, particularly in the business field. I think those that are, are not active politically. In other words, they are content at living their lives and voting their political views at the booth and dealing with their business, and not interested in one more group to go to.”

Dumanis maintained that this is not something unique to the Republican Party. “I think it’s the same in the [San Diego] Democratic Club. I think you have a core group of people that go, but otherwise the activity level of the people is in the background, financially. I think that Republicans financially support the candidates of their choice; I think it’s just a function of what one chooses to be involved in.”

While Dumanis said that she has been well received in her office since taking the helm in January, she did come under fire from conservatives for a hate crimes training seminar put on by her office that specifically targeted the GLBT community — and for comments made by former employees of the DA’s office during that forum. Hector Jimenez and Wendy Patrick, deputy DAs in the Hate Crimes Division of the office, headed up the meeting.

“The forum was … advertised apparently only to the San Diego gay and lesbian community,” ultra-conservative talk radio host Roger Hedgecock said on his show at the time. “Fewer than what, a couple of months after Bonnie Dumanis is sworn into office, and as she publicly proclaims in the national media, as the first-ever gay district attorney. And I was accused of being at least insensitive for bringing this up during the campaign. So it wasn’t an issue during the campaign, but now it’s an issue after the campaign, apparently.”

The San Diego News Notes, a conservative Catholic newspaper, also reported, “During the forum Hector Jimenez, a deputy district attorney in the hate crimes division, compared East County residents to Nazis and told participants to contact certain attorneys for hate-crimes lawsuits. A subsequent Roger Hedgecock radio show criticized Dumanis and got a letter of apology from the DA’s office for Jimenez’s picture of East County.”

Despite Jimenez’s public apology for the comments, shortly after the story appeared both Jimenez and Patrick were transferred out of the Hate Crimes Division and into new departments. Dumanis said that the transfer had nothing to do with the criticism and more to do with budget cutbacks and standard rotation of staff members through the office.

“I didn’t read any article from the Catholic news; they were transferred in the process of looking at where to put people in the office,” Dumanis said. “We try to keep people from staying in one area for too long and also in rotating people through the office. Also, the number of cases didn’t justify two people. So we changed those two and put David Rubin in, who has done it before, who’s certainly committed and happens to be gay.”

In the coming month Dumanis also plans to make good on her campaign goal of upholding California’s medical marijuana laws by implementing guidelines for the county, despite opposition to such laws on the national level, where U.S. Drug Czar John P. Walters has said that prosecuting such cases is a high priority for the federal government.

“I said that I’ve sworn to uphold the state laws and that’s what I will do,” Dumanis said. “If the federal government wants to go after these people and can, there’s nothing I can do, but in this day and age of very few resources for everyone, I certainly don’t have in our office the resources to spend a lot on medical marijuana cases.”

Dumanis said that her guidelines will be based on those set forth by the San Diego City Council and will be important to law enforcement officials throughout the county in understanding what the office will and will not prosecute.