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By Elizabeth Giegerich
Friday, April 25, 2008
Lesbian couple Tara Baker, 48, and China Clarke, 31, sat on bar stools recently at Ruby Fruit, a lesbian bar in the West Village. Partners for four years, they bought a house together in Albany and now share the bills, house cleaning and homework time with Clark’s 9-year-old daughter. But, as gay and lesbian New Yorkers know all too well, Baker and Clark will not share a legal marriage anytime soon.
Unlike previous elections, marriage equality is barely a talking point during current debates—and that’s OK with a surprising number of gay Americans.
“Of course we’d love to see some more pro-gay talk from candidates, but we know how to deal without that already,” Clark said.
Several members of the LGBT community point out that other issues are at least as important now.
“We would like to have the same rights as hetero couples,” said Laura Randall, 38, of Queens. “Things like property when your spouse dies, sharing income, stuff like that. But I don’t think gay issues are a hot button this time around. I think the war and economy are more important, to be honest, and the mortgage crisis.”
Others in the community share Randall’s opinion. In fact, a November survey of LGB likely voters found that only 21 percent of respondents placed LGB rights above the economy and the Iraq war. (New York’s Hunter College conducted the poll, which was funded by the Human Rights Campaign.)
Issues like health coverage, social security and the war are also among the most important ones for 60-year-olds Mary Donlon and Barbara Wood, who have been together for 24 years, and are fast approaching retirement.
“We’ve lived long enough to know what is really important and what is worth fighting and dying for: health coverage, justice, the economy,” Donlon said.
Other factors diminish the urgency of gay topics in the presidential debates. For starters, both Democratic candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are similar on gay issues. Both support civil unions that would grant the same legal rights, benefits and privileges that heterosexual couples receive to gay married couples. Both have also pledged to work to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and both champion a federal anti-discrimination law that would protect the equal rights of lesbians and gay men. (Both also support repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, though they differ on which sections of the act they’d repeal.)
The Republican candidates’ negative attitude toward gay marriage—key talking points in the 2004 election—have barely been mentioned this election season, while hot issues like immigration, the Iraq war, the economy and health care have taken precedence.
The Stonewall Democratic Club, which endorsed Clinton, notes that no candidate has championed a federal anti-discrimination law that would also protect transgender individuals, an important gay community issue that has been largely ignored in the campaign.
“It’s a little frustrating that our issues are not being discussed, but the emphasis this year is getting someone who we think will be better on our issues in the White House,” said Matthew Carlin, president of Stonewall. “We understand why they are not discussing issues important to the gay community, but we wouldn’t object to them discussing them either.”
The New York Times reported that lesbians and gay men make up roughly 5 to 13 percent of the Democratic vote in New York, and that the gay community is far more likely to be interested in politics than mainstream voters, because of how intimately politics affects their lives.
One thing heard across the board from LGBT Democrats is that they are desperate for someone who will beat Republican candidate John McCain.
“As a black woman I am totally torn (between the candidates),” Clarke said. “ I appreciate the way Hillary thinks. She thinks differently than a man, but at the same time I’d like to see an African-American in office. “But if Obama was a white man, I might have to vote for him, because I am so scared of a Republican getting into office.”
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