www.ac4lt.org

As I write this, we know that Senator Obama will be the next president and that is indeed great news! But, though only 15% of the precincts are reporting in California, I fear that proposition 8 will pass.

It looks like this could be a night where Obama wins by a greater margin than I could have imagined and equality in California falls by a greater margin than I would have expected. Indeed, I was hopeful that proposition 8 would fail in the most progressive state in the country. Unfortunately, hatred and bigotry look like they have won another temporary victory.

Regardless of how that turns out, at worst it can only delay the inevitable. As gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of our society become more accepted, as the lies and myths are debunked, the opposition to full equality will crumble. It looks like it may take longer than we’d hoped. As I head off to get some sleep, maybe the tide will change, but even if it doesn’t, it is only a matter of time.

The first debate is now over. It was, as these things often are, light on real substance. Was there a blowout winner? Not in my assement. Senator Obama’s answers resonated with me more than Senator McCain’s. Given that they weren’t talking about social issues, ti was a little easier to be objective, but I felt myself agreeing with Obama much more often than McCain.

Though I went into the debate supporting Obama, I now think the argument that he won’t be good on foreign policy is going to be proven a non-issue. McCain seemed to be talking down to Obama and often appeared to deliberately misinterpret what was a rather clear statement from Obama. Personally, I’ve seen enough of that behavior to last a lifetime in the last eight years so it wasn’t welcome.

McCain seems unwilling to admit that going into Iraq was a mistake and wants only to focus on the future. However, those who are unwilling to admit past mistakes are also unwilling to take the personal responsibility that McCain says he is so in favor of. This strikes me as a problem.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next two months.

Last night, before a national audience, six Democratic presidential candidates participated in a forum that was televised on Logo. It wasn’t a debate; the candidates were on the stage individually being questioned by a panel. They weren’t asked the same questions though there was a fair amount of overlap.

Two Democratic candidates didn’t participate because of scheduling conflicts.

Not one Republican candidate accepted the invitation to participate.

I don’t think this could have happened eight years ago. Not many candidates were willing to be seen as too friendly to LGBT issues and most of them tap danced around the issues. This year there were six on stage at a national gay event and at least one of the Democratic candidates who couldn’t participate is also on record as being very supportive (Senator Biden).

I came in expecting this to be a mostly content free show with softball questions lobbed up to candidates but it wasn’t. They asked good questions and mostly got real answers (by real I mean they didn’t sidestep the question and answer a different question).

Let’s start with the worst of the bunch from my perspective. Bill Richardson looked uncomfortable and floundered a bit. He seemed ill prepared and didn’t impress me. Even so, he’s generally a supportive politician. And he was the worst of the bunch.

Clinton and Obama both are strong supporters of the LGBT rights and really only miss on the marriage issue (both support civil unions). They are willing to settle for civil unions and their answers were a little too politically calculated for my taste.

Edwards is similar except he’s honest about not support marriage. He does support civil unions. I respected his honesty.

Kucinich isn’t as polished as the above candidates but he’s there 100%. He supports marriage rights. Same for Gravel, even though he hasn’t been active in politics for 26 years.

Speaking solely on LGBT issues, I’d rate them in this order:
1. Kucinich, Gravel
2. Edwards
3. Clinton, Obama
4. Richardson

Except for marriage, there isn’t a huge difference though Richardson didn’t come off as being strongly supportive while the others did. Frankly, any of the would be a thousand percent improvement over the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.