The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute last week released the first comprehensive report of the positions of the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidates on key gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. The 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidates on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues finds that while the candidates, as a group, hold the most pro-GLBT positions ever taken by a field of candidates for president, the majority are not leading but reflecting public opinion.
‘Contrary to assertions of conservative pundits, it’s clear that the Democratic candidates cannot be accused of ‘pandering’ to the gay community,’ said Matt Foreman, NGLTF executive director. ‘By and large, their positions aren’t ‘leading’ the fight for equal rights, they simply reflect the overwhelming opinion of the American public.’
‘Frankly, given the crowded field and the importance of the GLBT vote in Democratic primary contests, you’d expect all the candidates to be much more out there on our issues,’ Foreman said. The openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual vote has emerged as a sizable, discrete voting bloc of 4 to 5 percent of the vote in national Congressional and Presidential elections and close to 10 percent in Democratic primaries. According to Voter News Service data, openly gay voters are 9 percent of the vote in large cities and 7 percent of the vote in medium-size cities.
The report analyzed the positions of the nine declared Democratic candidates in 11 issue areas, including sexual orientation and gender-identity nondiscrimination laws, civil unions, marriage, the ban on gay people serving in the military, and GLBT-supportive education policies.
The most supportive candidate is former Illinois U.S. Senator and ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, who has taken supportive positions in all 11 issue areas. The next most supportive is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has taken positive positions in all the issue areas except same-sex marriage. The least supportive is Sen. Bob Graham, who has taken pro-gay positions in only four of the 11 areas. Three of the frontrunners have relatively solid records: Sen. John Kerry has been a leader on nondiscrimination and HIV/AIDS prevention; Rep. Dick Gephardt is also a strong advocate on AIDS issues, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s support for gay-rights laws dates back a quarter century.
The greatest area of disagreement among the Democratic presidential candidates is around extending equal rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples. Only three—former Sen. Braun, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and the Rev. Al Sharpton—support full equality in family recognition, namely, extending the freedom to marry to same-sex couples.
On the issue of the freedom to marry, the candidates are less supportive than the general public: according to a 2001 poll, nearly 40 percent of the public supports the freedom of same-sex couples to marry. Moreover, public support for equal marriage rights is growing rapidly, NGLTF said.
On the Republican side, gay-baiting figured prominently in the 1992 Republican Convention. A meeting between the Task Force, AIDS activists and Robert Mosbacher, chair of the Bush-Quayle reelection campaign, evoked a firestorm of criticism from the Right. See www.ngltf.org.