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The New York Times
Democrats Voice
Support of Gay Rights
in TV Forum
By PATRICK HEALY,
nytimes.com from the Web, August 10, 2007
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9 — Six
Democratic presidential candidates broke new ground Thursday night by
participating in a televised forum devoted to gay issues. All voiced
strong support for equal rights and government benefits for gay Americans,
though the three leading candidates said they opposed same-sex marriage.
With the candidates generally agreeing on the major issues at hand, the
organizers of the forum chose to dig deeper into their personal attitudes and
experiences. In particular they grilled former Senator John Edwards, who
has expressed religious concerns about same-sex marriage and who, according to a
former consultant of his, once said about gays, “I’m not comfortable around
those people.”
Mr. Edwards moved swiftly to deny remark. When one of the forum’s
panelists, the singer Melissa Etheridge, asked if he felt “O.K. right now” in a
roomful of gay people, he said with a chuckle, “I’m perfectly comfortable.”
Turning serious, Mr. Edwards added: “Can I just tell you — that’s not
true. Someone else said it, and it’s not true, it’s not true. It
came from a political consultant, and he’s just wrong. Elizabeth and I
were both there, and we’ve said it’s wrong.”
The political consultant, Robert Shrum, recounted the comment in a recent book.
Mr. Edwards also took the opportunity of the forum, which was organized by the
Human Rights Campaign and shown on the Logo cable channel, to repudiate his past
remark that his religious views had influenced his opposition to same-sex
marriage.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” said Mr. Edwards, a Methodist, drawing applause.
“We have seen a president in the last six-plus years who has tried to impose his
faith on the American people. I will not try to impose my faith belief on
the American people.”
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton also faced a bolt of skepticism from Ms.
Etheridge, who asked why gay Americans should trust her professions of support
when “our hearts were broken, we were thrown under the bus” by her husband,
former President Bill Clinton.
“Obviously, Melissa I don’t see it quite the way you describe, but I respect
your feeling about it,” Mrs. Clinton said, noting the gay appointees in her
husband’s administration.
Asked what was at the heart of her opposition to same sex-marriage, Mrs. Clinton
said, “I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions.”
While Mrs. Clinton enjoys support from many gay Democrats, she offered some
contrary views from gay rights advocates.
She defended the Clinton Defense Department policy known as don’t ask, don’t
tell, saying it was meant to ward off a “witch hunt” against gay soldiers.
But she said she now supported repealing the policy.
Senator Barack Obama was challenged on his image as a “candidate of change”
because, in the words of one of his questioners, Jonathan Capeheart, his
opposition to gay marriage was “decidedly old school.”
“Oh, come on now,” Mr. Obama said. Noting that he had quickly accepted the
invitation to the forum, he said, “There’s a reason I was here first: I’ve
got a track record working on these issues.”
Like Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama emphasized his support for civil
unions that included full marriage rights.
Perhaps the most surprising moment of the night came when Gov. Bill Richardson
of New Mexico, causing a visible stir in the audience, replied to a questions
about whether he believed being gay was a biological fact or a personal choice.
“It’s a choice,” Mr. Richardson said, a view that is contrary to the position of
many gay rights advocates. He added, “I don’t like to answer definitions
like that that are perhaps grounded in science or something else that I don’t
understand.”
The other two candidates who participated in the forum, Representative Dennis J.
Kucinich of Ohio and former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, expressed full
support for gay marriage.
Two candidates did not participate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and
Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut.
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