National
HRC endorses Obama for Election 2012
Announcement met with criticism from right and left leaning LGBT advocates
The Human Rights Campaign announced on Thursday that it has officially thrown its support behind President Obama in his bid for a second term at the White House.
In a statement, HRC President Joe Solmonese said his organization endorsed Obama because of what the president accomplished for the LGBT community during his nearly two-and-a-half years in office.
“President Obama has improved the lives of LGBT Americans more than any president in history,” Solmonese. “In 2008 we were promised change and profound change is what we got. More remains to be done and ensuring that President Obama is able to continue the forward momentum toward equality for another term is an absolute priority of the Human Rights Campaign.”
The achievements for the LGBT community that HRC highlighted in its endorsement statement are pressing for passage and signing legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; pressing for passage and signing a hate crimes protections law; determining that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and refusing to defend the anti-gay law in court; and requiring hospitals across the country to permit hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples.
Alec Gerlach, spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said the HRC endorsement demonstrates the support that Obama has offered the LGBT community.
“That the Human Rights Campaign offered such an early endorsement is a clear sign that the president has fought for LGBT rights across the country and in our nation’s military,” Gerlach said. “We will work closely within the LGBT community in the months to come to ensure that we are united in the cause to re-elect the president and to ensure equality for gay and transgendered Americans. The president believes that DOMA is discriminatory and unfair, and because the fight for equality affects us all he will not support it.”
HRC’s endorsement for Obama shouldn’t come as a surprise because the organization has been working closely with the White House in the implementation of pro-LGBT initiatives since the start of the administration. HRC endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign and has endorsed only Democratic presidential candidates in previous elections.
But the extent to which HRC will back Obama in 2012 election with financial support remains uncertain.
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, said decisions on financial contributions or other support that his organization will make to Obama haven’t yet been made.
“Today is about the endorsement,” Sainz said. “If and when there are other reflections of our support — those are determinations that will be made later.”
Criticism of the timing of HRC’s endorsement has already emerged among LGBT activists with both left-leaning and conservative ideology.
John Aravosis, the gay editor of AMERICAblog, said HRC should have waited until Obama took more action on behalf of the LGBT community — such as announce support for marriage rights for gay couples — before endorsing the president.
“Why not hold out for him to endorse marriage equality?” Aravosis said. “Or ask him to sign an executive order on [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] for federal contractors? The man hasn’t even finished repealing [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], and forget about ENDA and DOMA, and HRC is already saying ‘Mission Accomplish’? You don’t just give the president something for nothing. You negotiate these kind [of] endorsements.”
Sainz said HRC will continue to press for more pro-LGBT actions from Obama even in the wake of making an endorsement.
“We continue to work towards all of those very important priorities,” Sainz said. “The alternative to not having President Obama in the White House is just not an acceptable option.”
Aravosis said he thinks HRC will purport to have received promises from the Obama administration in exchange for offering support, but should be challenging the president rather than standing behind him.
“While I’m sure HRC will claim they got lots of juicy promises in exchange for the endorsement, everyone else learned a long time ago that the president is unlikely to keep his promises unless you get in his face, and HRC will never get in his face,” Aravosis said. “So the promises are meaningless, and thus the president got HRC’s endorsement for nothing, and now won’t have to do anything for the next two years to truly earn that endorsement. I’m sure it nails down the president for the next HRC dinner, but that really shouldn’t be the goal here.”
HRC didn’t respond on short notice to a request to comment on whether the organization secured any additional promises from Obama in exchange for the endorsement.
LGBT conservative groups also criticized HRC for making an endorsement before a Republican presidential nominee has been chosen — or even before all the likely candidates on the Republican side have announced their intent to run for the White House.
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said the HRC is ending what he called its “charade of bi-partisanship” by endorsing Obama at this point in the election cycle.
“LGBT people who are interested in putting policy before partisanship now know that HRC is little more than a puppet of the Democratic National Committee and an organization that has one goal — to elect more Democrats,” LaSalvia said.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, also said HRC is offering its support too early by endorsing Obama with Election 2012 more than a year away.
“By prostrating themselves before Barack Obama eighteen months before the 2012 election, the Human Rights Campaign has effectively told the president that he doesn’t have to do anything more to earn gay and lesbian votes,” Cooper said. “Given his lackluster record in the fight for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal, LGBT Americans were counting on HRC to hold the president’s feet to the fire on his other campaign promises, not to become a branch of his re-election campaign.”
Cooper further criticized HRC by saying the endorsement sends “the wrong message” to potential Republican presidential nominees who may want to reach out to the LGBT community.
“There are several possible candidates who deserve to be fairly judged on their own merits, and the dialogue on equality issues for the 2012 campaign has barely begun,” Cooper said. “This decision makes it clear that Joe Solmonese’s greatest priority is an invitation to drinks at a Democratic White House, not securing votes for ENDA, DOMA repeal or tax equity. Such a pre-emptive endorsement is a mistake and will undermine equality efforts.”
In response to criticism for LGBT conservative groups, Sainz said HRC made the endorsement because Obama is far and away above any potential candidate the Republican Party may choose in the 2012 election.
“The records of other candidates seeking the presidency should be a wake-up call to all fair-minded Americans,” Sainz said. “As the fight for equality moves forward, President Obama is marching with us while the alternative would stop us in our tracks.”
Federal Government
Trans veterans sue the VA for coverage of surgeries
Case filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
A group of transgender veterans on Thursday sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to compel the agency to cover gender affirming surgeries, following verbal assurances that it would begin providing these services.
The lawsuit, filed by the Transgender American Veterans Association, aims to reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes that can result from lack of access to medically necessary healthcare interventions for people with gender dysphoria.
This includes suicides, depression and psychological distress.
In its complaint before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, the group argued gender affirming surgeries are often prohibitively expensive when administered by private doctors.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough in 2021 said the agency was engaged in a rule making process to provide these services to trans veterans such that they can “go through the full gender confirmation process with VA by their side.”
The process, he said, would take a few years to “develop capacity to meet the surgical needs.”
National
New data shows nearly a third of Gen Zers identify as LGBTQ
Democratic poised to have significant influence in elections
New data from the Public Religion Research Institute shows 28 percent of Generation Z adults who are between 18-25 identify as LGBTQ.
This significant increase in self-identification among Gen Z highlights a positive shift in the societal acceptance of LGBTQ individuals, setting the stage for a more inclusive and diverse future.
The findings, based on PRRI polling and focus groups conducted between August and September, not only sheds light on the evolving landscape of sexual orientation identification, but also suggests that younger generations are increasingly comfortable and empowered to openly embrace their sexuality and gender identity.
The study reveals that 16 percent of millennials, 7 percent of Generation X, 4 percent of baby boomers and 4 percent of the Silent Generation identify as LGBTQ. This stark generational difference underscores the ongoing positive transformation in societal attitudes toward the LGBTQ community.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson emphasized the significance of LGBTQ visibility and Gen Z’s role in fostering change.
“Whether at the polls, in marches and rallies, or online, LGBTQ+ visibility matters and Gen Z is a force for change,” she said.
Robinson further highlighted the political consequences of anti-LGBTQ attacks, noting LGBTQ youth who are turning 18 will influence elections.
With nearly 30 percent of Gen Z adults identifying as LGBTQ, the LGBTQ community is rapidly becoming one of the fastest-growing voting blocs in the country. This demographic shift is poised to reshape the American electoral landscape, with projections indicating that the LGBTQ voting bloc could constitute nearly a fifth of all voters by 2040. This voting bloc is expected to wield substantial influence, permanently transforming and reshaping the political landscape in the United States.
Texas
Groups write to UN over ‘deteriorating human rights’ for LGBTQ Texans
State officials’ rhetoric ‘stigmatizing and labeling LGBTQIA+ persons’
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Equality Texas, GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign and the University of Texas at Austin School of Law Human Rights Clinic wrote to the United Nations on Monday “to raise alarm about the deteriorating human rights situation for LGBTQIA+ persons in the state of Texas.”
Citing hostile rhetoric from and policy by state actors, the groups urged recipients to make inquiries into what they called the backsliding of rights for LGBTQ people in Texas. They also laid blame at the hands of the federal government which, they argued, “has not adopted a proper response” notwithstanding some injunctions from federal courts.
The authors identified seven bills, writing that they, together, constitute “a systemic attack on the fundamental rights, dignities and identities of LGBTQIA+ persons that opens the gates for discrimination by both public and private actors.”
Among these are three that the petitioners argue constitute direct discrimination as proscribed in international law — an anti-transgender sports ban, a healthcare ban for minors and a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices on the campuses of public colleges and universities.
Others, the authors argued, will likely be discriminatory in effect, such as, for instance, a bill that would introduce religious chaplains in schools “who may engage in conversion therapy,
may shame students for their sexual or gender identities, or may out students without their consent.”
Moreover, the groups wrote, rhetoric by Texas officials “stigmatizing and labeling LGBTQIA+ persons as unwanted members of the society may amount to public incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, prohibited under article 20, paragraph 2” of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “because promoting harmful stereotypes
about gender and sexuality risks creating wider repercussions such as persecution, violence and discrimination against LGBTQIA+ persons.”
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