PHIL ROEDER
theFeed
Backing Biden
Biden
Human Rights Campaign endorses Joe Biden for president. By John Riley
T
HE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN, THE NATION’S largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, has officially endorsed former Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s 2020 bid for the White House. The Human Rights Campaign’s board of directors, comprised of 26 community leaders from across the United States, unanimously voted to endorse Biden for the presidency on May 6, the eight-year anniversary of when the former Vice President came out publicly in favor of marriage equality during an interview with Meet the Press. That interview was credited with convincing then-President Barack Obama to embrace marriage equality amid his 2012 re-election bid. “Vice President Joe Biden is the leader our community and our country need at this moment,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “His dedication to advancing LGBTQ equality, even when it was unpopular to do so, has pushed our country and our movement forward.” To coincide with its endorsement, the Human Rights Campaign released two new videos highlighting the reasons or issues fueling its decision. Among those reasons were Biden’s longstanding support for strengthening hate crime laws to protect LGBTQ people; his vocal support for marriage equality at a time when it wasn’t politically convenient; and his support for various types of nondiscrimination legislation, from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the ’90s and 2000s, to the Equality Act, a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last year but has since stalled in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. HRC also noted Biden’s opposition to attempts to introduce constitutional amendments that would have banned same-sex 22
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marriage, his support for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, the reauthorization of PEPFAR, a government initiative to increase funding and set targets for the treatment, care, and prevention of HIV/AIDS across the globe, and his support for repealing a ban on visas for people who are HIV-positive. The former vice president is also credited with fighting for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning LGB service members from the U.S. military, and the lifting of the ban on transgender service personnel — something that was reversed when President Trump introduced his own version of a ban. HRC also claimed that Biden — who has previously called transgender rights the “civil rights issue of our time” and has spoken out against reports of violent attacks or murders of transgender women of color — has adopted an LGBTQ platform that is the “most comprehensive LGBTQ equality plan by a presumptive presidential nominee in our nation’s history.” David later went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to defend the endorsement, telling hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist that Biden’s promises on LGBTQ rights stand in direct contrast to the policies of President Donald Trump. “We have, in Joe Biden, someone who is a fighter for equality, who will protect marginalized communities,” he said. David has also vowed to mobilize HRC’s more than 3 million members, who will “work day and night” to encourage approximately 57 million so-called “equality voters” — those for whom a candidate’s positions on LGBTQ issues play a significant role in whether to support that candidate — to head to the polls in the upcoming November election. “This November, the stakes could not be higher. Far too many LGBTQ people, and particularly those who are most vulnerable,
