Hillary Clinton has become the first presidential candidate from a major party to pen an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper.
by Sean Mandell
October 6, 2016
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While acknowledging the huge strides made for LGBT rights during President Obama’s tenure, Clinton writes,
…the simple truth is that even now, in
2016, there are still too many states in America where LGBT people can
be fired or evicted from their home because of who they are or who they
love. Pennsylvania is one of them. Here, you can get married on Sunday
and fired on Monday, just for being gay or transgender.
That goes against everything we stand for as a country.
We need to act on the federal level to
take on discrimination in all its forms. That’s what I’ll do as
President — with your help.
On the threat posed by Donald Trump to the LGBT community, Clinton says,
He would rip away so much of the progress
we’ve made. He would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn
marriage equality and rescind many of President Obama’s executive orders
— including those protecting LGBT people.
As governor of Indiana, Pence supported a
bill that legalized discrimination against LGBT people. As a member of
Congress, he voted against expanding the definition of hate crimes to
include sexual orientation and gender identity. He opposed the repeal of
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” saying doing so would be “social
experimentation.” And he’s said that homosexuality would bring about
“societal collapse.”
That’s why the stakes in this election are so high.
If elected, Clinton vows that she would work to pass the Equality Act, a federal bill that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, public education, federal funding, credit and the jury system.
Says Clinton of the bill,
It would finally provide LGBT people full
federal nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment and so
much more. I know that differences of opinion on LGBT equality still
exist in the hearts of some Americans, but they should not exist under
our laws. As president, I’ll be your partner in bringing about the
vision of the inclusive nation that advocates, activists and allies have
been seeking for decades.
Of the violence that LGBT people, especially LGBT people of color, face, Clinton calls for more data collection to help find ways to stop hate crimes:
LGBT people are now more likely than any
other group to be the target of a hate crime. America saw the effects of
hate in Orlando, with the attack on the Pulse nightclub — the deadliest
mass shooting by a single person in our history. The danger is
compounded for LGBT people of color, who face intersectional pressures
and dangers, particularly transgender people of color. Last year, more
than 20 transgender women were killed in America. Recently, three were
murdered right here in Philadelphia.
We need to stop the violence and save
LGBT lives. We need to collect more data around gender identity and
sexual orientation in hate crimes, so we can stop them in a smarter,
more effective way. And we need to finally pass common-sense reforms to
address the gun violence epidemic.
HIV and AIDS still disproportionately
impact gay and bisexual men, communities of color, transgender people
and young people. We need to increase research, expand the use of
effective prevention medications like PrEP, cap out-of-pocket drug costs
and reform outdated HIV-criminalization laws.
Like many, I’ve lost friends and loved
ones to AIDS. We owe it to them — the people we love and miss, and the
people whose names we’ll never know — to continue this fight.
Clinton concluded by saying she “won’t quit until all our laws reflect” the reality that LGBT rights are human rights—once and for all.
You can read Clinton’s full op-ed for PGN here.
[Photos via Instagram]
Read more articles from Towleroad, here.
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