The HRC/Visible Vote Forum

I watched the first two candidates -- Barack Obama and John Edwards -- on the Human Rights Campaign/Visible Vote '08 candidates' forum before Morpheus descended. Pam Spaulding over at AMERICAblog has both a liveblogging thread and a follow-up to the event. The impression I get from reading all of the coverage is that Dennis Kucinich did a great job and Bill Richardson fumbled a question about whether or not being gay is something you're born with. He spent more time trying to recover from that than he did on stage.

My overall sense of this event is that it does two things. First, it tells the electorate that the LGBT community is more than just people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered. Issues that impact the community impact us all. When there are over 1,100 laws and regulations on the books that specifically deny equal rights to those people -- including me -- they might as well deny all the rights we have as citizens in this country because we don't get to fully participate, and in many cases we have to bear an extra burden, be it insurance, health care, inheritance, or even the simple matter of going on a two-for-one cruise. The anti-gay-rights crowd says that giving us these rights is tantamount to "special rights." Even if that were the case, we'd still only be catching up with everyone else.

The second result of last night's forum will be to put the anti-gay crowd, whether they're hiding behind their religion or they're just plain bigoted, on notice that the LGBT community can't be taken for granted. Even if we represent only 20% of the population, that's not insignificant -- just ask Dick Cheney -- and there are a large and growing number of people who are not LGBT but who support the cause. An overwhelming majority of Americans think it is wrong to discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring, and a growing number realize that there are gay people in their families, their work places, their schools, and that they vote.

The righties and the Religious Reich will try to dismiss last night's event as pandering to the gay community and brag that no Republican candidate would lower themselves to such blatant patoot-smooching. (HRC offered to host a forum for the GOP candidates, but they said no. However, they have no problem speaking at Bob Jones University or the Baptist Convention....) They may even use last night's event to campaign against the Democratic nominee. Well, let them; all it will do is prove that they are ignorant tightasses and that the more they carry on about the radical homosexual agenda, the more bigoted and and ridiculous they will sound.

If you saw last night's event, feel free to comment about it.