Filed under: Blog, Politics, Texas Monthly | Tags: Barack Obama, Blog, Hillary Clinton, Homosexuality, Ohio, Politics, Texas, Texas Monthly
People don’t talk about it as often as the latino vote or the female vote, but it is widely believed that Clinton has been holding onto the majority of the gay vote since the beginning. With her numbers slipping in the polls and Obama’s 11 straight victories, his campaign is now focusing on that demographic which may put him on top of his opponent for the March 4th primaries: the gays.
Today, Obama placed the below ad in several gay newspapers in Ohio and Texas. His campaign also released an open letter to the gay community in which Obama touted his support for passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act and denounced the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Passages from the letter:
In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does.
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Yet another of the many reasons I support Barack.
Comment by sparrow February 28, 2008 @ 11:45 pmI think it is great that he should offer his views on these issues in such a public way. I think it speaks volumes about his desire to build unity in this country.
Comment by Frank G February 29, 2008 @ 10:35 amI think it’s another time of Barack telling the audience what he thinks they want to hear.
Comment by steve February 29, 2008 @ 11:29 amI can see why he’d want to get as many people on his side as possible, but how many extra voters will this actually get him? I mean, only a very small portion of the population is gay; is he really going to get a huge number of extra votes?
Of course, this will also show a lot of people that he’s on the right track with issues like this, so that’s bound to attract a lot of non-gay people who want more homosexual rights.
Comment by lifelessonsfromwriting February 29, 2008 @ 4:21 pmIt’s estimated about 10% of the population is gay, which is a pretty significant chunk of the population when you’ve got neck-and-neck races.
On another note, though, this stuff was released into the ether pretty quietly. I imagine it wasn’t a move to stir up a bunch of votes from straight people. It went out only in gay newspapers, etc. He has shown a record of slipping in one or two gay references per major speech or demonstration and the gay part of the blogosphere always picks it up and goes nuts, but it sneaks past any ears that could potentially be turned off by it.
Comment by Nicholas Jackson March 1, 2008 @ 12:20 amfirst off, what a difficult category to measure. that said, 10% is probably not a reliable estimate on the rate of homosexuality in the overall population. (that often-cited figure is based on false citations of the Kinsey reports.) a more reliable estimate is generally held to be around 4-5%.
Comment by kyle March 1, 2008 @ 2:24 amNice Information
Comment by bestchildrensbooks1 March 11, 2008 @ 4:47 pmThanks for sharing
OBAMA gay?
Comment by bestchildrensbooks1 March 11, 2008 @ 4:47 pm