LGBTQ Presidential Forum: Candidates to address community changed by a decade of progress

NBC News OUT Politics and Policy ^ | September 19, 2019 | Tim Fitzsimons reports on LGBTQ news for NBC Out

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The last time presidential candidates gathered to address LGBTQ issues specifically was 2007. Since then, there’s been a sea change in rights and acceptance.

When 10 of the Democratic candidates for president gather in Iowa on Friday evening, it will be at a forum to address issues that are top of mind for one of their party’s most reliable constituencies: the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

The candidates — Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Sestak, Elizabeth Warren and Marianne Williamson — will take the stage at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, where they’ll be quizzed by Lyz Lenz, a columnist for The Gazette; Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy at One Iowa; and Zach Stafford, editor-in-chief of The Advocate. The event is being sponsored by GLAAD, One Iowa, The Gazette and The Advocate, and it will be hosted by transgender actor and activist Angelica Ross, who’s best known for her role in the hit FX series “Pose.”

The last time such an event took place was in November 2007, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama among the participants. In the 12 years since, the country has undergone a revolution in terms of LGBTQ rights and acceptance.

The mere presence on stage of the openly gay Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a symbol of all that has changed for Democrats since the last forum.

In 2007, the Defense of Marriage Act banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions like Buttigieg’s. Gay Navy officers like Buttigieg were banned from serving openly because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Only two states — Connecticut and Massachusetts — had legalized same-sex marriage, and many more had recently enacted constitutional bans against it.

[fwdude]

“Progress” is an odd word for describing decline.

Well, cancer progresses too. That’s what I always tell leftists.

[BenLurkin]

Excellent.

[Salman]

The sodomites are all geared up to fight to the end, despite the fact that they appear to have won beyond their wildest dreams of less than 20 years ago.

Next up: Normalize sex with children.

[Brown Deer]

“I’m the first person nationally to come out and say in front of everyone that I didn’t have to go through any period of adjustment,” Biden told the audience inside Coe College’s Sinclair Auditorium. “I came out on Meet the Press in support of gay marriage before anyone else did nationally that was on the scene, number one. And the reason I did is I didn’t have to evolve.”

Transcript of Palin, Biden debate
October 2008

IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that.