One year ago I was a very strong supporter of Dennis Kucinich. I was realistic and knew his campaign wouldn't result in him becoming the nominee but I admire and adore anyone who will support what is right and what is not the most popular of opinions within their party and possibly within the population of the country. When Dennis dropped out I supported John Edwards, I always felt that deep down he supported the equal rights of gay and lesbian citizens but sadly he dropped out just days before the Minnesota caucuses so I wasn't able to caucus for him.

Without a candidate to support, I was torn between Hillary and Barack. I sat back, I did not caucus because for one thing, I had to work that night and I didn't feel like taking the night off from work to support a candidate I wasn't even sure I'd vote for. Over the last few months I've watched Clinton take the lowest road I've ever seen in politics, I honestly feel her campaign has been more negative and more deceptive than Bush's run in 2000 and 2004 and she's not even the nominee, her destruction was aimed at her fellow party member and showed a complete disrespect for her own party and our political process.

Today I am a proud Obama supporter, I feel Hilary Clinton has proven over the past three months that she'll do anything and say anything to be elected and I cannot trust her judgment or her words.

My only wish is that Obama will be true to his campaign of change and work for and support change in our society toward gays and lesbians and the issues that face us.

My own personal feelings withstanding, I'm curious to know what other people's feelings are about our current presidential candidates and where the GLBT community might be supported or hurt in the next four years.

Well, we have their web site positions to go by, and obviously both are friendly and supportive. After that it's gut instinct. And I think that's where my bias is so strong that it's not fair. That is, while I wouldn't have expected it six months ago, to please a certain segment, to collect two more votes, to get a deal on legislation, I guess I can see HRC backing away from that basic premise of support.

I don't know if I'm being fair.

We have no chance of progress as long as republicans have any kind of say. They will continue to pander to the religious right simply because the Gay Marriage Button will always be hot, and will always get a guaranteed chunk of votes. This all in light of the discovery of abuse among the polygamists and in the Catholic Church. Hypocracy still blinds these fundamentalists.

The same goes for any chance at a viable third party. It will never have a chance- especially nowadays- with a republican in the WH. No matter how much you hate the corporate dems, and we all know who they are- we still have a better chance for straightening this whole mess out with them than without them.

McCain is a non-starter, many feel betrayed by the Clinton's because we got thrown under the bus with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and Obama is an unkown entity at this point.

Obama will take a stand for all Americans' rights, not just certain groups. Remember what this man did before getting into politics, and what he studied in college.

I'm an Al Gore supporter who really did not know who I would consider next after it became clear the Gore was not running this year. In the last 3 or 4 months I have become very impressed with Barack Obama and disappointed with Hillary Clinton. I am concerned that Hillary will tell people what they want to hear because it's popular today, not because of her values. Just look at the 'gas tax holdiay'.

Sociologically speaking, I think the 'gay marriage' issue will cool off over time. People are afraid of change and afraid of the unknown. When most people know gays as their neighbors and co-workers instead of that scary caricature used to frighten and manipulate them, things will get better. The train of progress and freedom has left the station and it's coming to America.

When it comes to gay equality i don't think Obama is an unknown factor at all. In a nutshell, his stated religious convictions preclude his supporting marriage equality. He favors abolishing DADT and opposes DOMA. He is on record as supporting civil unions, but wants to leave that up to the states.

The latter approach will result in a patchwork of varying degrees of non-portable legal rights for gays and their families coming from those states which choose to move in a positive direction on this issue.

Obviously it also leaves states free to do nothing at all or to move in the opposite direction with laws prohibiting adoption by gays and banning protection from job and housing discrimination to name a couple. The states' rights approach didn't work out well for Blacks in the South under Jim Crow and it won't work out well for us now.

On the scale of evolution, speaking of Americans specifically, using levels of education as a guide, we are in about
7th grade

The only reason we have graduated from primary into middle school is a percentage of Americans, albeit small, have begun to grow up and recognize the absurdity of homophobia as well as the influence organized religion has had on us...


We cannot, as immature and ignorant 7th graders, elect a leader who openly admits to supporting the marriage of two gay people...Such a candidate cant win the general election, not yet.

I pretty much agree. Sadly. Although with Obama our evolutionary maturity or lack thereof is not an issue since his opposition to marriage equality as he has described it is not a political decsision but a faith-based one.

I do sometimes wonder though how true it really is that a candidate who supports marriage equality not as his or her primary issue but as part of an overall progressive platform would be handicapped by that stand. The conventional wisdom says that it would be a deal killer. But I'm not so sure. Is there any data one way or the other on this?

Do you feel that often times a politician, even one who is very liberal, has to do and say certain things just to get the nomination or to win office?

Some politicians do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Dennis Kucinich is one of those people, he doesn't say what people want to hear, he says what is right. Ralph Nader is another, regardless of what people may think of the 2000 election, Ralph Nader over the years has brought many issues to the forefront that would otherwise not even be discussed and he does it because it's the right thing to do, not because he actually thinks that he'll become president in his lifetime.

I strongly supported Dennis Kucinich right up until his inevitable withdraw from the race. It takes a strong man to stand up for what is right and to embrace issues that everyone knows will cost him the election but he brought issues to the table that nobody else wanted to talk about and there is a good reason why the networks did not want him involved in the debates.

Then we get to the candidates that will say anything just to get a vote. I have heard Hillary flip flop on gay marriage. It is my opinion that she'd say and do anything in an effort to appear to be for everything and against everything as long as it scores her a vote.

Eight years ago, I might have thought there could be hope for McCain if he were to win higher office, I at least saw that he was a man who stuck by what is right and not by what his party and what his supporters dictate. I see 8 years has changed McCain, he's so desperate now to become the president that he's sold out his own morals and values in a power hungry last ditch effort at becoming the President of the United States of America.

Obama says he has no problems with civil unions and at least that is a start, I wouldn't expect any candidate to proclaim their desire to see gay and lesbian couples be married as heterosexual couples are, at least not before November.

I think, Alfredo, what bothers me the most about all of this is that gays are being treated as just another special interest group, and not a terribly important one at that. In the eyes of many, perhaps most progressive straight folks it seems like the struggle for gay equality is to human rights what Whole Foods is to groceries. Our equality is a luxury option, not an essential component.

I do not expect a President Obama or a President Clinton to do much more for us than a President McCain. They all share essentially the same view. They agree that we deserve to be treated civilly, they can live with whatever, if anything, the individual states in their wisdom decide to extend to us in terms of legal status for our relationships and protections for our families, they will go along with the military which is rapidly coming round to favoring the abandonment DADT and on a very basic level all three of them would glad if we'd just go away so they wouldn't have to deal with us.

The real difference between Republicans like McCain and "mainstream" Democrats like Obama and Clinton when it comes to us that McCain has no problem essentially saying that second class citizenship is the best we should hope for. The two Democrats, on the other hand, sound like they are promising more, but they really aren't. I prefer honesty to the perennial Democratic snow job.

Actually, I've always felt that as long as anyone is denied equal rights under the law we all are at risk. So selfishly, I want to see gays get their rights as badly as I want to hang on to my own.

But at least I do honestly care!

Seriously Tyo, I'm not sure most straight Americans, those who think about GLBT issues anyway, have a clue how little protection there is under the law for gay people. I certainly didn't. I assumed you all had the same civil rights I had until I moved in with a gay couple and got ejukated.

The others, well they are so insecure about their own sexuality that they'd rather no one reminded them of the other possibilities out there. Those people would rather you were forced into the background again so they didn't have to feel so uncomfortable about their own questions.

See what freedom from running for office does

If you haven't yet, check it out

http://current.com/items/88817757_gay_men_...the_same_rights

The People, Not the Powerful 2008

I think that in Gore's case there is a lot more to it than not being in a political race. It's hard to compare the two current Democratic candidates with people like Gore and Kucinich when it comes to principles and courage. The latter two win hands down.

From Clinton's website, it doesn't seem that LGBT rights are much of a priority. As far as I can tell, the LGBT community is not mentioned at all on the main page, and none of the links on the main page takes you directly to a page on which LGBT issues are discussed. (LGBT issues are mentioned deeper in the website - you can find specific webpages using, for example, an advanced google search.)

By contrast, on the main page of Obama's website, there is a link for LGBT under the tab for People (the tabs on the main page are for Learn, Issues, Media, Action, People, States, Blog, and Store).

I emailed the Clinton campaign website to ask about this difference.
All I got was a barrage of requests for campaign donations.

Both Clinton and Obama have spoken about 'achieving full equality' for the LGBT community, yet both are opposed to Federal protection of same-sex marriage.

Both of them also tout their having co-sponsored various pieces of legislation supporting LGBT rights.
But why has neither of them (correct me if I am wrong) not been a principal sponsor, an author of such legislation.
Anybody can sign on to be a co-sponsor. That isn't leadership.

Why not work on the state level. Should they have the most power? I admit Im an idiot on these issues, please show me the way.

That doesn't surprise me at all, the DNC is the same way...they don't respond to individual emails but they gladly suck your email in for pandering funds.


This is true and the only times they've made comment on it publicly to my knowledge is when asked directly or when attending a function for gay and lesbians.


This is true and it's pretty much left to the state level, especially since a lot of states have passed their own legislation opposing gay marriage. I think we need more state level support and legislation, once that's done it needs to be done on the federal level so that the remaining states must comply.

I agree. I am a little dif on this board, as in, I believe in states power, for good or bad.

I might not be the right person for this. I couldn't show someone the way out of a strip mall parking lot, but I've never let that slow me down

I think there are two big problems with leaving it up to the states. One is that if you accept the fact that this is an issue of basic civil rights then the states can't be trusted with it. We need only look at the struggle of Black Americans in the South and that of Asians in the West Coast States to see how well that approach worked out.

The states can do the right thing as MA has done. Or they can do the wrong thing as Utah and Louisiana have done. Or they can do nothing at all. This is imo not the approach to take. States should be allowed to fine tune marriage laws, but they shouldn't be allowed to forbid two competent adults of the same sex from entering into the marriage contract.

The other issue is one of portability. A straight couple that gets married in Massachusetts is also married in Idaho, Texas, New York or wherever else in the country they choose to go. A same-sex couple that gets married in MA becomes just two individuals as soon they cross the MA border into another state. My civil rights should not be determined by what state I happen to be in at any given time.

I've left religion out of this intentionally because religion has nothing to do with it. Marriage as it exists in this country today is a legal construct as far as the State is concerned. People are free to have their marriages sanctified or not as they choose and religious institutions are free to offer sanctification or not as they choose. Allowing same-sex marriage on, say, the Canadian model would do nothing to change this. The argument that allowing same sex couples to marry constitutes an assault on religious freedom is quite simply not true.

Thank you, best answer i have heard to this question. May not be able to show way out of strip mall, but helped me with this one.

Agreed.

Leaving it to the states is like leaving environmental protection to the states, or the licensure of pharmaceutical manufacturing to the states.
Radioactive clouds emanating from nuclear power plants in Illinois don't just stay in Illinois. They blow over Lake Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, etc. We are all in this together.

This might have already been said, but the LOGO debates from January (God that seems ages ago) was very telling. I was appalled at Bill Richardson's absolute unenlightened view That was my first impression. And honestly, I knew nothing about Obama at the time as I was so much in love with Dennis. Still am.

It was heartening to see all the major democratic contenders there at the LOGO debate. That's progress. But, my impression then with Hillary was that she was calculating. And she didn't apologize for the Defense of Marriage Act.

Obama struck me as honest. He said he didn't like the concept of marriage for the LGBT community, as that had a religious association that some people couldn't disconnect with (true) but he stated without hesitation that hewas in full support of civil domestic partnerships. I also noticed he was comfortable saying "gay" and "lesbian", while some of the other candidates seemed to swallow those words.

So we'll just have to see. Frankly, I think we have to look at bigger priorities that affect us all: Getting these wars stopped. The cronies Bush appointed replaced by honest professionals again, the economy fixed and health care for all. If those things are fixed and everyone is feeling good (you know, white middle class soccer moms and dads) then we can address individual communities like ours. I also feel that the old prejudices are dying away and Americans are maturing into the mindset that these aren't shocking issues anymore, but more like, OK, fine, not a problem.

Dan, I have a friend, he's straight and he's a typical semi-homophobic man. Four years ago we were at a bar and I asked him what his opinion was on the proposed gay marriage law (making it illegal) in Nevada. He sad without a doubt it had to pass and that while we were great friends and all, he simply would never support gay marriage and it was an abomination in the eyes of 'The Lord.' I respected his honesty and we had a great night talking about other things and...well, getting drunk.

I moved to Minnesota and I believe the bill passed, outlawing gay marriage in NV.

Last summer I went to visit family and friends back in Las Vegas and I posed the same question to him...just to see if he at least showed any signs of changing his opinion. To my shock he said to me (and I'm trying to say this as closely as I remember it): "There are far more important things we need to be worried about than if two people who love each other want to be married."

Perhaps we're seeing people's opinions change not only with the passage of time but with so many more important things going on such as the war in Iraq, the economy and the overall direction of our country as you mentioned.

I'm very hopeful for the future, I've talked with teens who have told me that in their schools it is no big deal to be gay or lesbian or bisexual and that very very few kids have the strong feelings their parents and grandparents have.

All it takes is time I'm very hopeful for a bright future.

QUOTE (Dan-From-LA @ May 8 2008, 06:03 PM)

This might have already been said, but the LOGO debates from January (God that seems ages ago) was very telling. I was appalled at Bill Richardson's absolute unenlightened view That was my first impression. And honestly, I knew nothing about Obama at the time as I was so much in love with Dennis. Still am.

It was heartening to see all the major democratic contenders there at the LOGO debate. That's progress. But, my impression then with Hillary was that she was calculating. And she didn't apologize for the Defense of Marriage Act.

Obama struck me as honest. He said he didn't like the concept of marriage for the LGBT community, as that had a religious association that some people couldn't disconnect with (true) but he stated without hesitation that hewas in full support of civil domestic partnerships. I also noticed he was comfortable saying "gay" and "lesbian", while some of the other candidates seemed to swallow those words.

So we'll just have to see. Frankly, I think we have to look at bigger priorities that affect us all: Getting these wars stopped. The cronies Bush appointed replaced by honest professionals again, the economy fixed and health care for all. If those things are fixed and everyone is feeling good (you know, white middle class soccer moms and dads) then we can address individual communities like ours. I also feel that the old prejudices are dying away and Americans are maturing into the mindset that these aren't shocking issues anymore, but more like, OK, fine, not a problem.

I have to disagree to a certain extent.

First of all, Obama by his own admission is himself one of those people who cannot disconnect marriage from its religious association. As a secular humanist/atheist whatever you choose to call me and a believer that religious dogma has no place being the law of the land this concerns me.

Certainly Obama is entitled to his faith and all that it entails, but should he be elected our president he will be president of all Americans, not just Christian ones. He needs to either support marriage equality or provide a valid reason for not doing so that is not rooted in religion. Clinton needs to do the same thing.

What bothers me even more is your feeling that there are other more important priorities. What is more important than insuring equality under the law for all Americans? With apologies to Mr Bush, that is one of the concepts this country was founded on. With the experience of generations of minorities behind us we should know by now the pain and suffering and waste of human potential that comes from having a two-tier system of rights.

The state has never shown, nor have opponents of marriage equality ever shown, that the state has a compelling interest in denying us this essential right, a right that is totally taken for granted by our straight fellow citizens. If you substituted Blacks or Asians, or Native Americans, or even Catholics for gays in your argument it wouldn't stand for a minute. Are we somehow less deserving than they are?

Years back I was on the other side of this. I dont think there is much real reason. Its like blinders. until one day you see the light. Its called freedom.

That was exactly my feeling as I read that. The great compromise that wrote slavery into the Constitution was an abomination.
For blacks and for women, there was no more freedom in the new democracy than there had been in the colonies under the British.

Yes, I believe it's wrong that religion and politics are intertwined together, having said that let me pose this question... What would any candidate's chances be for winning the November Election if they were openly in support of gay marriage?

I think many of those crossover votes and fence riders would swing over to McCain.

It's sad to say but I think that would be the case and it would hurt any Democratic nominee. Maybe in 2012 or 2016 but not in 2008. Taking a stand for civil unions is a start at least.

good question. I don't have the answer. Just a few more questions. Al Gore has come out in support of marriage equality. This is a hypothetical, but if he were somehow drafted as the Democratic nominee, would that stand kill his chances of winning in the GE?

Also it seems to be conventional wisdom that marriage equality would be a deal-killer for a whole bunch of voters, but has any actual polling or surveying been done on this? Would support for marriage equality within the context of an overall progressive platform really be that big a deal for people? Would those for whom it is a major issue even be inclined to support a progressive platform in the first place?

And regarding the primary in general, having watched this whole sorry process play out over the past several months it's clear to me that we've gotten to the point in this country where the only way to rise to the top of the political heap is to be a pandering mediocrity because that is what the voters and the media demand.

The principled candidates are weeded out early leaving us with people like Clinton and Obama. At least they are relatively well intentioned pandering mediocrities as opposed to McCain who is an evil and malignant pandering mediocrity.

You pose some good questions and thoughts. As for whether gay marriage would be a deal killer, I really believe it would...though not as much as if McCain were to say he's in favor of it. The Republican base would end his run premature if that were the case, he'd never survive to November. I know if it would have affected Hillary, her support base isn't as strong as she believes it to be and because her base is older and white blue collar, I simply think it would have sank her campaign long before now. Obama, I think he would lose the support of many crossover votes he's been getting and independents. One place that might actually strengthen him would be with white women. I do not have the numbers and it could be a huge assumption on my part, but I strongly suspect Hill has the white lesbian vote.

No matter what, the Republican media would be all over anyone supporting gay marriage...civil unions are another story, they seem to let that slide.

Bill Clinton implied, in an mtv interview, that the position he and Hillary have taken on same-sex marriage is just a political tactic to buy time until society becomes more accepting of the proposition, at which time, as the argument goes, they will be able to pass favorable laws.
Youtube 3/24/08

Looking at the legacy of the Clinton administration, and the fact that Hillary has not been the author of legislation supporting LGBT rights, I don't buy it. They will do or say whatever they think will get them into office, including shift to the right when necessary.

Wouldn't it be nice it the Democratic and Republican nominees tacitly agreed to just make it a non-issue in the general election?

Me too, Wayne. Gore was my guy bigtime. Only when it became obvious that he was NOT going to run did I turn my attention to the other candidates, and in the beginning I was leaning towards Edwards. I always liked Obama tremendously since his speech at the last Dem convention--he made me cry-- I just didn't think that this country, sadly, was ready to elect either a woman or a black man. I am now firmly in the Obama camp and would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

What an unfortunate reality for these times, bigotry often attracts more votes than acceptance.

Doug, you've managed to say in just one sentence what I've been writing paragraphs trying to express.

Sad but true

BUT, there is hope. We had a strong female candidate for the first time ever and this year we may see our first black president, who knows what the future may bring.

Alfredo, your relentless optimism is gonna drive me over the freaking edge It is totally incompatible with my unshakable pessimism. Especially the first thing in the morning.

Thank you

You would hate me, I'm a morning person, within 5 minutes of waking up I'm bright and perky and usually without caffeine.

I am very torn on this issue. I really think that neither candidate is telling me what I want to hear -- or for that matter is going to be willing or able to do what is right.

Nonetheless, I will vote for either candidate and keep fighting the fight.

Donnie McClurkin.

Silence=Death.

I think we need to stop expecting anything from the Democratic party in terms of doing the right thing. The best we can hope for from this lot is that at maybe least the won't do the wrong thing.