The Last Presidential Debate: No Mention of LGBT Rights

by Michael Jones · 2008-10-15 21:11:00 UTC
Topics:

Debate13 mentions of "Joe the Plumber."

At least 5 mentions of William Ayres.

1 mention of the Arizona Cardinals beating the Dallas Cowboys.

1 "My Friends" comment, in Sen. McCain's closing statement.

0 (ZERO) mention of anything related to LGBT rights tonight.

That's a shame. Bob Schieffer was roundly praised tonight as being the best moderator of the Presidential Debate season, but not mentioning gay rights this evening was a missed opportunity. Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage five days ago. The tenth anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder, and the subsequent push for a federal hate crimes legislation, was widely commemorated three days ago. National Coming Out Day was four days ago. The campaign against (and for) California's Proposition 8 have been at their most intense this past week.

But tonight, during the one debate solely focused on domestic issues?  Nothing from either Obama, McCain or Schieffer on LGBT rights. That's a shame. In fact, in the entire series of Presidential debates, the only pointed question on LGBT rights came during the Vice-Presidential Debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin. And it was one of the shortest exchanges between the two candidates that night.

All in all, I'll agree that this was the most interesting debate of the three Presidential forums.  But it was a missed opportunity not to have at least one question dealing with LGBT rights, especially during such a rich week for the LGBT rights movement.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Blog Action Day 2008: The Culture of Consumption and the Cost of Being Gay
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.