Joe Biden’s Pick For Vice-President Candidate Is A Major LGBT+ Ally
Joe Biden's choice for his vice-president candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris, is a strong LGBT+ ally and checks all the boxes for a vice-presidential candidate.
“You make a lot of important decisions as president. But the first one is who you select to be your Vice President. I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” Biden wrote in an email from his campaign to supporters.
Harris has effectively been campaigning for the LGBT+ vote for years. As San Francisco’s district attorney, she created a special hate crime unit focused on crimes against LGBT+ children and teens. She pushed for legislation to ban a gay/transgender “panic” defence and to ban conversion therapy for minors.
During her presidential campaign, Harris made many of the same pledges that the other candidates did, including prioritizing passage of the Equality Act, reinstating Obama-era protections, and vigorously pursuing hate crimes. Perhaps her most newsworthy moment on LGBTQ issues came when she dismissed the idea of widespread homophobia in the black community as a “trope.”
“The reality is that, sadly and unfortunately in all communities, bias occurs, and in particular homophobia and transphobia,” she explained. “But to label one community in particular as being burdened by this bias as compared to others is misinformed, it’s misdirected and it’s just simply wrong.”
As ‘LGBTQ Nation’ reports, in picking Harris, Biden is sending a strong signal about the future of the Democratic party as younger and more diverse than the Republicans. He’s also setting Harris up as his potential successor. At age 78, Biden could well be a one-term president, and his vice president has a higher than usual chance of assuming office during the first term.
Read related myGwork articles here:
Joe Biden Endorsed By U.S.’s Largest LGBT+ Group
The US’s Biggest Trans Activist Group Has Endorsed Joe Biden
Joe Biden Will Invite Pete Buttigieg To Join His Administration, If He Becomes President
Joe Biden Announces His First Act as President Would Be To Outlaw LGBT+ Discrimination
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