This won’t mean a whole lot if you’re not from Philadelphia, but Chelsea Clinton is going to be at Woody’s tonight. Woody’s is the biggest gay bar in town and they’re hosting a forum.
Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was scheduled to appear Thursday at the popular Philadelphia gay bar Woody’s to participate in a candidates’ forum sponsored by the National Stonewall Democrats. Lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge was scheduled to address the forum as an Obama representative by phone from Los Angeles.
National Stonewall Democrats announced on its web site that it had organized a live transmission by phone of the Philadelphia forum to gay house parties throughout the country, which the group said would serve as another in its series of presidential candidate forums held in key primary states.
Clinton has won the gay endorsement battle in both Philly and Pittsburgh, but the vote is going to be very divided. There isn’t much difference in Obama and Clinton’s positions on LGBT issues, so the choice comes down to other considerations. Clinton looks to get some last second help from Mark Segal, who is probably the most influential voice (media-wise) in the Philly gay community.
Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, the state’s largest gay newspaper, said the Clinton campaign has so far had a more aggressive outreach to gay voters in Philadelphia and other parts of the state.
“The Clinton campaign takes the GLBT community very seriously,” he said. “At the moment, it’s Hillary’s to lose,” he said, referring to the gay vote.
Segal said his paper has remained neutral so far in the Pennsylvania primary but he plans to make an endorsement on behalf of the Gay News during the final week of the campaign.
I have to confess that I don’t understand the point of endorsing Clinton at this late stage of the campaign. Take John Murtha, one of only two superdelegates to endorse Clinton in the last month. His endorsement is so lonely that it just seems like pointless petulance at this point. Wouldn’t he serve his constituents better by befriending the next Democratic president rather than the last? What do gay groups in Philly gain by endorsing Clinton?
I’m all for rewarding (what they consider) good behavior, but the most important goal for the LGBT community has to be beating John McCain, and extending the primary isn’t going to help in that goal. I no longer think it matters whether your first preference is Clinton…a higher priority has to be helping the nominee wrap this thing up.
I’m curious as to why so many otherwise-intelligent Democratic special interest groups are bent on self-destructive behaviour. Clinton’s ties with the Family mean that her personal stance is rabidly anti-feminist and anti-GBLT. The Family even brags about their influence in this respect, and how her legislative agenda has hewn so closely to their beliefs. Yet feminist and GBLT groups treat her like the Second Coming. WTF, America?
I think that is as wrong as blaming Obama for some of the excesses of his pastor. Her credentials on feminist and gays issues stand on their own. I don’t see some hidden agenda that she is hiding. But she can’t win the nomination without a credentials fight at the convention (and a bunch of miracles) and that doesn’t serve the interests of the GLBT community. That’s my point.
The difference here is that the Family’s an organization dedicated to building power and controlling policy, Trinity United isn’t. Some choice quotes:
From the Mother Jones article on Hillary’s religion and politics.
From the Nation’s article on the Family. All evidence I’ve seen so far shows that Hillary seems to be quite committed to the Family and it’s agenda. The trend of her legislative agenda since falling in with them has matched the pattern documented by Mother Jones: supposedly higher, bipartisan initiatives that always seem to trend rightward… Until she’s supporting legalized misogyny in the workplace. And is her record on GBLT affairs really any better? After all, she did support DADT and the atrocious Defence of Marriage Act.
It’s true that she’s not really hiding it, her supporters are just blind to it. She’s moved from center-left to centrist, and is now tearing off gleefully into right field. Obama, meanwhile, has torn into black churches about their support for anti-gay bigotry. (Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon praised this when it happened, I can dig up links if you’re interested)
she invites this kind of criticism when she goes after Obama’s church, but I sure as hell do not want to see Obama’s campaign question her choice of worship.
Actually, as with race, I think America could do to have a conversation about religion. While there’s been a lot of fretting about how horrible and hateful Rev. Wright is, a lot of American pastors and preachers are a good deal more hostile, even bigoted and misogynistic. Talking about these beliefs, rather than sweeping them under the rug and pretending they don’t exist, might be very beneficial.
I don’t know man. I have mixed feelings on this one.
On the one hand, I totally agree with your long run analysis.
But on the other, the first thing I thought of when I read this was the big blow up a few years ago regarding pro-choice (was the candidate Casey? I don’t remember.) The argument then was the same thing, that by advancing the Democratic party as a whole it inherently helps to advance the pro-choice agenda.
The counter argument is of course that if you elect a bunch of Democrats that don’t follow the party line, then have you really helped advance your cause?
Of course, that was a different story than what we’re talking now, because the policy difference between Obama and Clinton with regard to LGBT issues is narrow, nothing like pro-choice vs. anti-choice.
But it still rings a little bit of the ‘just sit down, chill, and wait your turn’ attitude that was somewhat prevalent back then.
Personally, I think it’s an advocacy group’s responsibility to make an endorsement of whatever candidate they feel would best advance their interest. That’s why they’re there. And that’s what the primary is for. I’m sure they’ll endorse Obama in the general in the fall.
It’s short sighted electoral strategy to be sure, but I certainly can’t fault them for doing what they really feel they need to do to advance their interests.
yeah, I don’t question their right to endorse Clinton, but the wisdom and utility.
They may be trying to game Obama a bit too. I’m not sure how much weight their endorsement carries, but by not endorsing him even when he’s the sure nominee, they may be trying to be that little voice in his ear saying hey, don’t forget, we’re not quite in your back pocket yet.
I go to a college where something like 26% of the student body identifies as an orientation other than straight. Throughout my career, I’ve worked closely with many openly gay people. My best friend from first grade through high school was gay. My girlfriend is a librarian, a profession with a huge gay population, so many of our friends are gay.
I’ve never known a “group” that is less united, and more independent in their political views. My guess is that most of the gay voters in PA or elsewhere will be voting on non-gay issues, as long as the candidate is not openly anti-gay.
So, I predict that the LGBT vote is PA will largely be reflective of the non-LGBT vote in the same precincts.
The gay community has a really unhealthy relationship with the Clintons that I, as a gay man, have trouble understanding myself sometimes. The Clintons came onto the national scene at a time when gay activism had never been stronger, due to the AIDS epidemic and the previous Republican administrations’ complete ignorance of the epidemic. Just like Bill and Hill were welcomed into the African American “family” they were also welcomed into the gay “family” because they sought us out when no one had done that before. So there is some loyalty there.
The Clintons capitalized on it and promised to advance the cause of gay rights. Once all the gay checks were cashed, they showed that they didn’t have the political will to follow through and actually made things worse in the long run. But they are remembered as the first politicians to take us seriously, so they are treated as legends by some in the community, though they really don’t deserve to be.
And then there is the fact that Hillary is seen as a “troubled diva figure” in the family, which always generates sympathy from certain segments of the community. Some will go out of their way to protect their legendary diva from what they perceive as attacks against her by any adversary… to the point of being unable to see that they are just being used by their heroine. Once she cashes their checks and wins their votes, she’ll laugh her way into the next state and find her next batch of suckers.
While Hillary promises to magically correct all of the injustices that the LGBT (or AA or Latino, etc) community faces, Obama tells them that if they can create a movement, set clear goals and generate the support needed to go half way, he’ll work to push our initiatives over the top. Which is more realistic?
My 2 cents, anyway.
Doesn’t anyone in the LGBT remember the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed into law back in 1996?
From the law:
The following excerpts are the main provisions of the Act:
Powers reserved to the states:
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
Definition of ‘marriage’ and ‘spouse’:
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word `marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word `spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
Why would any group support H. Clinton when her husband signed into law legislation which denies gays their due process? Maybe she was working behind the scenes against it, like she was allegedly working against NAFTA when she was publicly for it.
I remember. I felt betrayed…. And that has fed into my deep distrust of the Clintons ever since. Not that there aren’t plenty of other reasons for that….
The LGBT movement has always been a loser for democrats. I have a number of gay friends and people I work with. They never have voted on gay issues until the issue has been so egregious that they think it might affect them personally.
Almost all of them are republican and vote strictly via pocket book issues. Her being endorsed by the lgbt group is of absolutely no help, and might be the kind of endorsement that hurts her given the demographic of the voters she is appealing to these days.
It appears to me that the gay party is the republican party — as long as they are deep in the closet. Even current gay activist bloggers who are now democrats used to work for extremely conservative republicans before they came out.
The LGBT community is not a voting block like ethnic, racial, and economic groups are.