Gay community opens up to Obama in final days of DNC

By Todd A. Heywood 8/29/08 12:49 AM

While the community made up of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and allies have been quietly complaining behind the scenes that the community has not been visible enough during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the complaints have gone silent. They have been replaced with inspiration.

With only one line, the Democratic nominee for President has moved a large segment of the community into his corner.

“I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.”

Obama said that to an estimated crowd of 84,000 people Thursday night in Denver. And the crowd was on its feet cheering, stomping its feet and supporting the senator from Illinois.

In addition, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the nation’s largest LGBT activist organizations, released a video of LGBT friends of Barack Obama, talking about their friendship with the senator. The video can be found here.

On top of the HRC video, Michelle Obama, the senator’s wife, met with LGBT delegates on Tuesday morning, and the campaign has put video of that speech up and you can view it here.

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Erin in Minneapolis 10 months ago 1 point
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He was merely throwing a bone to the Gay/Lesbian community with this one and I wasn't biting. In my opinion, he hasn't been outspoken enough, for fear that he'll lose conservative voters (who will most likely not support him anyway.)

While I will still vote for Obama come November for a million and one reasons, I'm still not impressed with Obama's stance and voting history on gay marriage. While he has claimed to support the Uniting American families Act in concept, he has not signed on to support the bill. Living lives free of discrimination should mean that I can legally marry my same sex foreign born partner and be afforded the same exact rights under federal law that are afforded to heterosexual couples. He has not signed on to ban the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and I'm wary that he would challenge it, if elected.

While I think that issues related to the environment, the war in Iraq, health care reform and the state of the economy are more important to the entire nation (and world at large) I find it personally difficult to praise Obama to be the dream-come-true candidate for gays and lesbians. His voting record and his actions don't support that kind of blind praise and adoration on this issue.