American Politics - The Difference Between the Presidential Candidates on Gay Issues

[LiZaRD_PlaNET]

After a while, you kinda realize that on gay issues, it has always been that the difference between US Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates is that the Republican candidate has a strong position on gay issues whereas the Democratic candidate has a weak one. The staunch conservative Republicans strongly oppose marriage equality, transgender rights, and other LGBT rights. Democrats have been on the fence, most of the time not supporting; sometimes reluctantly or silently supporting these issues.

Having come to this realization, I don't know whether I should vote for a president next year. If I skip that option on the ballot, I wonder if my votes on other things will also be invalidated.

[fredv3b]

In politics the less one intends to actually do about something the more one must keep talking about it.


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[DarkDaisuke]

Well there are some moving for the Democrat national convention to actually accept LGBT rights as their official platform for same-sex marriage. Basically, if you look at their website, they actually have an LGBT section. I don't know about Republicans though.

[posterpicture]

Vote for Democrat, they are the liberal side thus support GLBT right.
Republicans are Christian freaks lol

[Almac]

In politics the less one intends to actually do about something the more one must keep talking about it.


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That's so true..!

[pellaz]

Most N American elections are decided my a very small percentage. Its practical to think you could make a difference. I can not conceive why you would not pick to vote for president?
-No grey line here; Republican is a very bad word. As a gay person we should not slow down for them in the parking lot, the less of them the better.
-Any out of the box agenda is hurt by organized religion and or a popular conservative government.

In politics the less one intends to actually do about something the more one must keep talking about it.

very well said.

[Pix]

If the gay issue is your primary, or even only, concern then I think you should vote to reelect President Obama. While he has so many flaws I could go into, one way he has pleasantly surprised me is that he's done a lot for the gay community. Granted, he shies away from full equality (which in an autobiography of his he says is because of his Christian beliefs), but he still has made significant baby steps toward equality.

In contrast all the Republican POTUS hopefuls all seem angry and reactionary and wanting to "take American back (to the 1950s at least)."

But should you choose not to vote for a POTUS then fill in the name of someone (if that's allowed in your state) as otherwise whoever counts your vote will probably vote "for you." And truthfully I am so cynical of politicians in general that I think the only reason I stay registered to vote is so I can vote on the issues and measures that come up.

[East]

I think Obama might surprise you if elected to a second term. I think he has done what he knows he can politically "get away with" .....I expect great things from him if elected to a second term and I really never fully supported him. Dennis Kucinich was my first choice all along and he 100% supports gay marriage. My second choice was Nader/Gonzales who also support gay marriage but I took one for team and plugged my nose and voted for Obama...or was it against Palin/McCain?..this next time I am thankful I will not need to plug my nose nor vote against anyone..Obama won me over but since I had little expectation of him it was not that difficult. .

Abstaining voting for the Presidential candidate who represents at least some of your interest is in effect giving a vote to the guy who represents maybe none of them.

I don't know if you guys are aware of this or not but there is a LOGO channel which is a gay network and back in 2008 they hosted a forum for the Democratic Candidates...I watched at the time with great interest. They are probably available on YouTube...I will check.....

Interesting...the only thing I can find is a snippet from Edwards...all of the candidates including Obama were there. ...I think each got 20 minutes to state their case and answer questions from an all gay panel. The Republicans did not address the gay audience or their concerns...that alone should help anyone concerned with gay rights come to some conclusions.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Conservative - Religious - Liberal - Secular.

Gay rights, stem cell research, abortion - all of these 'hot button' topics are the Republican campaign platform. Anything goes wrong and suddenly the Republicans are pushing one of these buttons to draw attention away from the problem.

The Republicans do not want to have gay marriage banned. Nor to have the gays rounded up or anything along those lines. They want - no, need, the issue to remain so they can have a fail-safe topic to fall back on. If they really wanted the gay to go away they could have swept us under the carpet long, long ago.

At the same time they do not want everything to pass in favor either, because again, the gay topic is a hot button topic, once its gone its gone for good and they can no longer hit that button to win votes or to distract the people.

Liberals have other topics they can draw upon, but they also know the usefulness of keeping the hot topic buttons available for they will rile up the conservatives when they (the liberals) do something 'wrong' in order to draw attention away from whatever went wrong. So the Liberals do not want the issue resolved because they lose the political hot topic button to push when needed.

Register third party to vote. Granted you will be forced to vote Demoncrate or Repugliecan... but it gives you a little more wiggle room and you can run a third party candidate to some minor office, thus splitting up the Two party system a little.

[CellarDweller]

Whenever I hear of someone who is not going to vote, I shake my head. The first settlers came over here to escape the rule of a king and put place the election system.

Is it perfect? No, but it's the system we have now, and to throw away your right to vote makes no sense to me.

As for not voting for a president, I understand your disappointment, however there are some facts that you need to remember.

NOM (National Organization for Marriage) has gotten Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman & Mitt Romney to sign their "Marriage Pledge", saying that if elected president, they would support a ban on gay marriage.

President Obama may not have endorsed gay marriage, but he's allowing states to make their own decisions to support this cause. On top of that, President Obama has done A LOT for the gay community.

2009

Ordered Federal Government to extend key benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

Hosted the FIRST White House LGBT pride reception in history.

Awarded the highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom, to lesbian Billie Jean King, and the late gay activist Harvey Milk.

Created a National Resource Center for Lesiban, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Elders

Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law.

2010

Ended discrimination based on gender identity in the federal government.

Lifted the ban that prohibited people with HIV/AIDS from entering the US.

Ensured Hospital visitation and medical decision-making rights for gay & lesbain patients.

Allowed trans Americans to receive true gender passports without surgery.

Clarified the Family and Medical Leave Act ensuring family leave for LGBT employees.

Released America's first comprehensive plan to prevent and end homelessness, which includes homeless LGBT youth.

Awarded a grant to the Los Angelas Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center to work with LGBT foster youths.

Recorded an "It Gets Better" video.

Led a United Nations measure that restored "sexual orientation" to the definition of human rights.

Signed the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

2011

Ensured that government housing programs can no longer discriminate against the LGBT community.

Proposed more funding for LGBT priorities such as HIV/AIDS prevention and education, and bullying and teen suicide prevention.

Declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional and announced the administration will no longer defend its constutionality in court.

Hosted a conference on bullying prevention at the White House.

Completed an Institute of Medicine study on LGBT Heath, the first of its kind.

Clarified the meaning of "family" to include LGBT relationships, helping to protect bi-national families threatened by deportation.

Supported lesbian widow Edith Winsor in her suit against DOMA.

Issued guidence to foster safer working environments for transgender federal employees.

Strengthened enforcement of same-sex hospital visitation rights and decision making.

Implemented the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.



Why should we not support this President when he's clearly supporting us?