Madrid mayoral candidate comes out

A Green Party candidate for the mayor of Madrid has come out of the closet, Agence France-Presse reports. Jose Maria Mendiluce, who is a member of the European Parliament, acknowledged that he is gay in an interview in the January issue of the gay magazine Zero. The 51-year-old told the magazine that he had hidden his sexual orientation until now out of "cowardice" and because it could have hurt his political career. "The gay community can count on me to defend our rights together," he said. Both the mayors of Paris and Berlin are gay men, but Mendiluce seems unlikely to join their elite circle--opinion polls give the Green Party little chance of winning the city's mayoral race in May.