Lawrence City Commissioner Mike Rundle was at a checkout stand in The Merc on Wednesday afternoon when two women walked up to him.

“Mike, I’m so proud of you,” one of the women said as she stopped to hug him. Both women then congratulated him for publicly acknowledging during Tuesday night’s commission meeting that he is gay.

“It’s been like this all day,” Rundle said moments later.

Rundle, 51, a shift manager and head cashier at the Community Mercantile Co-op, 901 Iowa, had just finished an interview with a Kansas City-area television station. Another station also had called seeking an interview.

“I had a handful of e-mails as soon as the commission meeting ended last night,” Rundle said. “I just had a phone call from a constituent. It’s been nothing but positive.”

Rundle went public about his sexuality during a short speech as he concluded his one-year term as Lawrence mayor. He said he had not served as an openly gay politician, because he wanted the focus to be on his quest for good government and not on his sexual preference.

But Rundle said that since 1987 when he first entered politics, he has faced his share of what he described as “slanders, peppered frequently with profanity and lewd comments.”

In recent years, such comments have appeared on various Internet forums and through “whispering campaigns.”

Mostly, Rundle said, he ignored the comments and was thankful most other people did, too.

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Rundle also said the negative campaign launched against fellow Commissioner David Schauner during the last few weeks leading up to the April 5 election contributed to his decision to make public his homosexuality. Campaign postcards were mailed to women insinuating Schauner was involved in domestic abuse. Schauner has refuted those claims.

Rundle’s own experience and what happened to Schauner were the key factors that led him to go public about being gay. He said he made that decision Saturday when he was preparing remarks about the state of the city as its outgoing mayor.

“Since that kind of chatter was going on in a negative way, I thought I would just take a moment and respond that this was nothing I was ashamed of, and then get back to business,” Rundle said.

Rundle’s comments received a lengthy applause from a large audience at the commission meeting. Fellow commissioners also commended him.

“I admire your courage,” Commissioner Boog Highberger told Rundle moments later as he took over the mayoral role.

Rundle said he would not seek a major role in promoting gay rights, mainly because his time already is stretched thin as commissioner, nor will he run from giving speeches or making appearances on behalf of gay issues. He expressed concern about Kansas voters approving a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and wondered how it would affect common-law marriage involving heterosexuals.

“That gave me pause,” Rundle said.

Rundle’s “coming out” will catch some of his immediate family members off-guard, including his father, who lives elsewhere in Kansas, he said.

“I intended to come out to my family, and I hadn’t quite finished that, yet,” Rundle said. “I think that’s something I’m going to be doing in the next 24 hours.”