By Karen Ocamb

It is a historic moment: not since 1933 when Democratic presidential contender Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover has the race for the presidency been such an open field. But to progressive baby boomers, the race feels like 1968 when the Democratic presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson was mired in the Vietnam War, vociferously opposed by unruly youth, and Republican “law and order” candidate Richard Nixon soundly defeated Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. Only this time it’s Republican George W. Bush’s party that has plunged the country into a vastly unpopular war, with eight Democratic contenders offering a range of solutions to bring the troops home.

Besides the war in Iraq, America’s standing in the world has plummeted, the nation is deeply in debt, Medicare is eroding as the over-burdened health-care system teeters on failure, Social Security is headed towards collapse, climate change is finally considered a real crisis and, as Hurricane Katrina revealed, the government is not prepared for an emergency, let alone dealing with race and poverty.

Where does the fight for equality for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people fit into this extravaganza of problems? Put bluntly, LGBT equality is simply considered one of many “issues.”

At the California Democratic Convention in San Diego April 27-29, during which state Dems re-committed their support for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the top tier contenders only nodded to the LGBT community.

The word “gay” was used once—by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama—in explaining that debates over the important issues are not about finding common ground, but finding someone to blame. “We’re divided into red states and blue states,” Obama told the enthusiastic crowd. “We’re told always to point the finger at somebody else—the other party or gay people or immigrants.”

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards simply talked about “equality,” which presumably included gays, though he specifically focused on race and mentioned labor, the poor, nurses and educators.

Ironically, though one portion of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech to the 2,000-plus delegates stressed how people no longer wanted to be “invisible” to their government, her reference to gays was oblique: "Are you ready for a president again who actually respects science, and believes we ought to listen to scientists on, oh let's say, global climate change and stem cell research? Are you ready for a government that treats all Americans with dignity and equality no matter who you are and who you love? Are you ready to replace cronyism with competence again?"

Since moving its primary up to February, California has become more than the nation’s political ATM. Most of the presidential contenders in some way acknowledged the leadership California has provided on issues such as global warming, but the California Democratic Party and the state Legislature’s support of marriage rights for same-sex couples was not on the list of achievements.

As with major candidates, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd supports civil unions. At a news conference after his floor speech, IN asked Dodd why he didn’t support marriage equality. He repeated his remarks from the recent MSNBC debate in which he said that he has two daughters, and he asks people to imagine how they would react if their children wound up with different sexual orientations than theirs. How would they want their children to be treated? He said he was proud of his state for passing civil unions without a court order and praised New Hampshire for recently doing the same.

But, Dodd said, “the distinctions are almost without a difference in many ways between civil unions and marriage—except that people have it in mind of marriage being more of a religious ceremony. I believe at some point that [marriage equality] may happen. I’m just not prepared to use the word marriage to describe a relationship between people of the same sex. Civil unions, I support. But I believe marriage is an institution between a man and a woman, and I know some people have a different point of view and I respect that ... That’s the language we’ve used to describe that relationship over the years. And I believe if we figure in all the other things in terms of housing, jobs, retirement, loving relationship protections and all the others things associated with those kind of relationships, we’ve accomplished a great deal. It becomes a language issue for many people at this point, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who challenged state law by allowing same-sex couples to marry at the San Francisco City Hall on Valentine’s Day 2004, told IN that politicians might privately believe in marriage equality but have to get elected.

“I suspect, and I don’t mean to be critical, but objectively, the vast majority of the candidates privately believe in equality, it’s just the politics of it in some of the swing states is problematic, and so they’re going to be both pragmatic and practical about it. Do I like that? No. At the end of the day, do I understand it? Of course,” Newsom said. 

Newsom noted that pro-marriage equality politicians such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, among many others, “are doing quite well. There’s been no political consequence to anyone who supported marriage equality in the last legislative cycle. So the fact is if you can just get it off the table as an issue by moving on and saying, ‘Look, this is what I believe, whether you like it or not. I respect the difference of opinion—this is where I stand—and move on to health care, education and other things. And that’s the challenge for other elected officials—to find that voice. I think people want the authenticity. They want someone to say what they think. And they can disagree, but they can learn to respect that person and then find that they trust them more. But I do think there are consequences politically—I know it intimately. But everyone has to make their own choice. I would encourage them to do the right thing, but do what they think is right and not always what’s politically expedient.”

However, he encourages gay people to challenge politicians, rather than simply give them a pass, “otherwise there is never change.” But realistically, in the next presidential election, “the calculus is obvious: They’re not going to move forward because of that concern that it will be used against them in a very aggressive and perverse way, so it becomes an issue that dominates compared to issues that should dominate, appropriately, to a broader audience.”

A number of gays attending the convention feel the same way. Gerrard Panahon, 26, and his partner of over two years, moved to Northridge because there are better schools for their 6-year-old daughter. Panahon is a delegate supporting Clinton because of her views on children.

“I certainly thought that Barack definitely had a message,” Panahon told IN. “He talked about a very over-arching theme of turning the page on all of what’s going on right now—all of his ideas that he thought might work for a better America. Whereas Hillary had a few stories, individual instances that really kind of hit home, and I was really trying to hold back tears for quite a few of them. I felt like I related. I have a child, and she was mentioning these things about how education needs to get better, and she was talking about care for children. It wasn’t like this when I didn’t have a child. I felt like she really personalized it.”

One particular story was about a mother who couldn’t afford to get her son’s toothache fixed. It turned into an abscess and he wound up in the hospital. Thousands of dollars later, her son died. “That really hit me,” Panahon said.

Politicians, he said, “can’t say they’re for same-sex marriage because they’d alienate a lot of people who they need to vote for them. I heard it more from Hillary than I did from Obama—she’s concerned about how right now gay Americans are not being catered to. ...I didn’t get that from Barack. And that’s substantial.” While their stance on civil unions rather than marriage equality “bothers him,” he is also practical about the election. “We can’t all be one issue voters. While this is certainly important to us, everything else can’t go to hell in a hand basket.”

Robert Silverman, 71, the treasurer of the Desert Stonewall Democrats in Palm Springs, said he was “inspired by Obama’s speech. I thought it was really a great, tough, speech. He has the fire in his stomach, which, as a candidate—you have to have.”

“The candidates can’t disguise the fact that they’re not for gay marriage,” said Ted Johnson, openly gay managing editor at Variety and blogger at www.wilshireandwashington.com. “Back in 2004, if you asked people who was for gay marriage, they would have said John Kerry, when in fact he held the same position as George Bush. It’s just interesting how this early on, people know where the candidates stand. Right now, it’s all Iraq. All other issues are secondary right now. Just going to fundraisers, that’s all I hear people ask about is the war and how to get out. It’s either the war or how do they win.”

Perhaps the candidates felt they could address specific issues at the different caucuses. Clinton was represented at the LGBT Caucus by both openly gay state Sen. Christine Kehoe and openly gay Congressmember Barney Frank’s sister, Ann Lewis, who apparently is also acting as the LGBT liaison. Obama’s representative was awkward and used the term “homosexuals”—surprising, since Obama backer and gay politico Jeremy Bernard was in the room.  

The most surprising faux pas was delivered by the representative for Ohio Congressmember Dennis Kucinich, who supports full marriage equality. But his representative at the LGBT Caucus was so extraordinarily “out there,” he may have lost support. The representative told the audience that Kucinich would support AIDS funding because AIDS is “biological warfare” started by the federal government, so it’s the government’s obligation to fight it.

Will LGBT rights be an issue in the 2008 elections? “I think so,” California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres told IN. “When talking to [state] Sen. [Carole] Migden and [Assemblymember Mark] Leno—they’re obviously going to play a role on the issue. And I think we’re seeing more states move towards civil unions, and closer to marriage issues, and that’s going to play into the dynamic. But movements, in my opinion, take time. Having been part of the anti-war Vietnam movement when I was in college—it took time. The Democracy movement, which hasn’t taken full force in China—it took children standing in front of tanks to make a statement. I think the grassroots [members] of our party are very visionary in taking positions on issues, domestic and international. And that will eventually evolve into positions taken by elected officials.”