Power: The Straight Scoop on Thirty-Five Gay Power Players

5. Mary Bonauto
Civil Rights Project Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
Lawyer for the Goodridge plaintiffs, the celebrated Bonauto gets much of the credit for making this the first state to legalize same-sex marriage one year ago this month. But that was far from Bonauto’s first groundbreaking foray in court. She served as co-counsel in, among others, the Vermont case that led to civil unions being allowed in that state.

6. Harry Collings
Executive Director and Secretary, Boston Redevelopment Authority
Tom Menino is just wild about Harry, who gets some of the credit for the mayor’s gay-friendly reputation. When the two met as BRA up-and-comers in the ’70s, Collings became one of the mayor’s first openly gay friends. Over the years, he’s encouraged Menino’s adoption of a gay-inclusive attitude — which is not to mention the influence he wields at the city’s powerful planning agency. The BRA honcho moonlights as a promoter of Buzz nightclub.

7. Dennis Duffy; Chris Haynes; Dan Mathieu; Bryan Rafanelli
Duffy Design Group; CBH Communications; MAX Ultimate Food; Rafanelli Events
Fab Five, you can keep your gaudy SUV. Boston has its own queer eye guys, and we only need four. When their hour’s up, the whole city looks fabulous. Duffy designs interiors for Boston’s most exclusive pads, including Manny Ramirez’s, and just introduced Direction, a line of furniture sold by Webster & Company. He’s also on the board of the AIDS Action Committee. Haynes, head of Newbury Street’s CBH
Communications, serves as press maven for some of the hottest restaurants in town, from No. 9 Park to Union Bar & Grill, where he arranged Marc Jacobs’s uberhip all-white costume bash. (Duran Duran crashed.) Mathieu wields a powerful wooden spoon as co-owner of both South End hangout Flux and MAX catering. When he’s not whipping up sweets and savories for such publicity-garnering bashes as last year’s Moondance on the Esplanade, he’s serving on the boards of the American Repertory Theatre and the ICA — and sometimes teaming up with Rafanelli, whose wildly successful party operation had at least two events on last year’s Herald top-10 parties list.

11. Joseph Barri
Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr
When the Massachusetts Bar Association named John Rogers legislator of the
year even as the Norwood Democrat was cosponsoring a bill outlawing same-sex marriage, an angry Barri led a boycott of the bar association’s annual dinner, and almost every large law firm backed him up. Instead of sitting over dinner inside listening to Rogers being honored, several hundred lawyers marched in protest outside. (Rogers later withdrew his support from the bill.) Barri heads up Wilmer
Cutler’s pro-bono work for the AIDS Action Committee and is the founder of the Partners Group of gay and lesbian law partners and executives.