Let's Talk About It

This blog often highlights instances when GLBT issues come out of the closet and into the mainstream. Last night’s CNN / YouTube presidential debate was historic for many reasons, but I was most impressed by the unprecedented amount of attention that focused on the GLBT community. Previous debates have touched on these issues, but I can’t recall a more thorough discussion than the one excerpted below. Amazingly, I felt the most substantive, emotional, even contentious moments of the two hour debate were ignited by the GLBT questions.





Of course, I think this development is great and long overdue, but all this attention on gay marriage got me thinking. I was amazed at how brief the discussion on health care was. All and all, they barely mentioned education. Few would deny that the 2008 presidential election will be extremely consequential. Our country is caught up in a thousand trials right now, from the Iraq war to the health care crisis. I’m curious… as a member of the GLBT community, what issue is most important to you in regards to electing the next president? What should we be talking about most, the environment or DADT, health care or marriage equality? Is there one, individual issue that will decide your vote in the primary? Does that issue involve GLBT civil rights?

On anther note, this is the fifty-second post of 2007! This blog was re-inaugurated in January, and since then, we’ve tried to cover a broad array of issues, both local and national. What was your favorite post? How would change the coverage?

After fifty posts, I think we should take a little time to talk about it.

Thanks

Annise Parker and Sue Lovell Join the Clinton Campaign

Houston may proudly count itself among the few American cities that have openly gay leaders in their municipal governments. City Controller Annise Parker and City Council Member Sue lovell have offered Houstonians great leadership, and those of us in the caucus can proudly say "we knew them when." Both are past presidents of our organization, and today both have placed themselves in Hillary Clinton's corner, as she competes for to be first women President of the United States.

In a press release commemorating the stonewall riots, Clinton announced yesterday the formation of a 65 member LGBT campaign steering committee. All members of the committee have individually endorsed Clinton, and Parker and Lovell are included in the list. They're in good company too, as the committee is comprised of many of our nation's most prominent LGBT elected officials and community activists. You can view the complete list here.

The list of supporters on the steering committee demonstrates the history of friendship that Hillary Clinton has had with this community and the depth of her support among LGBT leaders. It includes people like former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Eldie Acheson, who went to college with Hillary Clinton, and Neel Lattimore who worked for her as First Lady as well as film/TV writer and producer Greg Berlanti who met her last week and signed on as a supporter immediately. The list also includes prominent LGBT activists who have been leaders on issues important to the community, including three retired members of the military who have worked to overturn the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the attorney who argued and won the landmark Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas.

Last week I posted that John Edwards had announced a second list of LGBT backers and the endorsement of Garnet Coleman. Yesterday, Edwards campaigned in Houston with Coleman and Chris Bell, another caucus candidate. As Pride month comes to a close, nearly all of the democratic presidential candidates have released some sort of statement demonstrating their LGBT support. You can read Barack Obama's statement here and Bill Richardson's statement here. In this race, the Democrats are embracing our community like they never have before. Elizabeth Edwards even campaigned at the San Francisco Pride parade, becoming the most prominent candidate or spouse to ever participate in the festivities. As far as I can tell, none of the Republicans have mentioned us, except to affirm their belief in heterosexual marriage.

Of course, the Houston GLBT Political Caucus has no official position and will have official position on the presidential race. We're exclusively focused on cultivating equality in Houston and across the state Texas, but this blog was created to be forum for our community to discuss politics at all levels. When local leaders from our community, like Annise Parker, Sue Lovell, or Garnet Coleman, make an endorsement, I think that we should talk about it here.

Now that we're in the summer lull, before the city races get going full throttle, I'd love to get a discussion going about all this. What do y'all think about the race so far?

GLBTube #5

Debates:

This clip, from last night’s debate (6/3/07), features Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Beyond their discussion, by show-of-hands, every Democratic presidential candidate indicated their desire to get rid of “don’t ask don’t tell.” Good for them! Later in the debate, John Edwards and Bill Richardson both spoke eloquently in support of same sex civil unions and the repeal of DOMA. Of the all candidates running for president, only Dennis Kucinich supports gay “marriage.” Every other democrat supports civil unions.

In this clip, members of the Minnesota House of Representatives Finance Committee debate the inclusion of domestic partnership benefits is the omnibus budget bill. Karen Clark has proudly served as an open lesbian in Minnesota’s State House since 1980.

Angie Paccione is a candidate for Colorado’s 4^th Congressional district. She currently serves in the Colorado House of Representatives. This is clip is from a 2006 debate between Paccione and Congresswomen Marilyn Musgrave. Paccione ended up losing the election in 2006, but she’s running again. She obviously supports us; maybe we should send her some support.

GLBT and the DNC

A number of interesting GLBT news items emerged from this past weekend’s annual, winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee. Most importantly, it appears that party Chairman Howard Dean, the DNC, and most of the Democratic presidential candidates recognize the importance of publicly supporting GLBT equality. As our community begins to scrutinize the commitment of each presidential candidate, GLBT party activists are working to increase our communities influence on the upcoming primary season.

More specifically, as has been reported by the "Washington Blade," in a speech given to the DNC's GLBT caucus on Saturday, Howard Dean expressed deep gratitude for gay activism during the 2006 election cycle.

Dean’s expected appearance today before a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus comes after national exit polling data show that about 80 percent of voters identifying themselves as gay or lesbian voted for Democratic candidates in races for the U.S. House and Senate...

...Gay Democratic leaders have predicted the election results would have a dramatic impact on gays by releasing gay-supportive bills that Republicans had bottled up in committee for the past 12 years.

Last year, some GLBT democrats criticized Dean for supposedly abandoning our constituency with the implementation of the now famous "fifty state strategy," which focused on making gains in rural, traditionally republican states, but after reading this article, I'm beginning to think that the goal of mobilizing rural democrats and the goal of mobilizing GLBT democrats are not mutually exclusive.

Also during the DNC meeting, each Democratic presidential candidate presented a stump speech, formally introducing themselves to the party. As far as can see, only New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson directly mentioned GLBT issues in his speech. (Click on the quote to watch Richardson's full speech).

In New Mexico, our fight for equality extends to sexual orientation. For the first time in state history we have a hate crimes law. We’ve extended civil rights protections to include sexual orientation. And we’re providing state health insurance for domestic partnerships.

Although Richardson was the only candidate to mention GLBT issues in his speech, the Washington Blade reports that gay politicos, who met each candidate during the meeting, were most impressed with two of the top tier contenders, John Edwards and Barack Obama:

Democratic National Committee GLBT Caucus Chair Rick Stafford and other politicos said Edwards and Obama have quickly outshined a crowded field of other White House hopefuls because they’re prepared to sincerely discuss gay issues.

Stafford said such genuineness is a key quality that many other candidates — including top Democratic contender Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) — have yet to demonstrate.

“When Obama and Edwards talk about our issues,” he said, “I think there’s a sense that they speak from their hearts and they’re willing to show that they’re not there yet, where I’m not sure that kind of speaking from the heart comes from Hillary.”

Culminating his DNC appearance, Edwards, during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," demonstrated the sort of sincerity described by Stafford. In this excerpt, Edwards talks about reconciling his faith background with same-sex marriage. (This clip opens with a brief discussion of the Yucca Mountain hazardous waste depository).

It should be noted that none of the major democratic candidates, including Al Gore and Wes Clark, have publicly supported same-sex marriage.

Finally, gay party activists are working to get more GLBT delegates to the 2008 national convention.

Minnesota activist Rick Stafford, the chair of the DNC gay caucus, said caucus members have joined forces with the gay group National Stonewall Democrats to encourage party leaders to help elect more gays as delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Stafford said DNC officials have promised to facilitate gay Democrats’ plans to work with leaders of state parties — including those in traditionally conservative “red” states — to include gays in their delegate selection plans. In a proposal that could become controversial in some states, Stafford said the gay caucus is calling on all state parties to set as a voluntary “goal” a contingent of gay delegates to the 2008 convention that come to at least 6 percent to 7 percent of the total number of delegates.