Nine U.S. Democratic presidential candidates will appear at a televised town hall on Thursday focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights, though top contender Bernie Sanders will miss the event as he recovers from a heart attack.
The Los Angeles event, hosted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and CNN, is the second major presidential forum dedicated to LGBTQ issues during the Democratic nominating campaign, following an event in Iowa last month that drew 10 of the 19 candidates vying to take on U.S. President Donald Trump. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Dana Bash and Chris Cuomo will moderate Thursday's event.
Gay advocates have expressed dismay at the Trump administration’s record on LGBTQ issues, including a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military.
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Earlier this week, lawyers for the Department of Justice argued at the U.S. Supreme Court that federal civil rights law does not prohibit employers from firing workers based on their transgender identity or sexual orientation.
The forum will include South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who would be the first openly gay U.S. president; former Vice President Joe Biden; U.S. senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar; former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro; and businessman Tom Steyer.
Ahead of the forum, both Warren and Buttigieg released detailed plans to secure equality for LGBTQ people, and their priorities for doing so included a number of similar initiatives.
Both candidates, like a number of other Democrats, support passing the Equality Act, which would explicitly add LGBTQ protections to federal anti-discrimination law. They also both vowed to reverse President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban, end conversion therapy nationwide, increase funding to end the HIV epidemic and ensure that religious freedom is not used as a weapon to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
Warren vowed to have the federal government begin manufacturing pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a drug that helps lower the risk of contracting HIV, to bring down the cost. She also said she would create a new grant program for transgender advocacy organizations, noting that at least 19 transgender people — almost all black transgender women — have been killed this year. Warren added that she would appoint a special LGBTQ human rights envoy in the U.S. State Department.
Buttigieg’s “Becoming Whole: A New Era for LGBTQ+ America” plan includes updating the U.S. passport program to include a nonbinary gender “X” option, launching a national mentorship program for LGBTQ youth and providing targeted approaches within women’s health programs for lesbians and bisexual women.
Thursday’s forum represents a fresh opportunity on the issue for Biden, who has seen his lead in polls wiped out by Warren’s recent surge. At last month’s event in Iowa, Biden found himself defending his LGBTQ record, including his 1993 vote for the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that barred openly gay individuals from the military.
Biden later backed repeal of that policy, and while he voted for a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, he backed same-sex marriage before President Barack Obama, under whom he served.