The Democratic National Convention is a watershed event for America’s gay rights movement, which never before has been embraced so warmly by a major political party.
There’s a platform endorsing same-sex marriage, a roster of speakers that includes three gay members of Congress, and a record number of LGBT delegates hailing from all 50 states â┚¬â€ 486 in all, more than 8% of the total.
“We’ve been an underrepresented demographic in politics for a long time,” said Jerame Davis of National Stonewall Democrats, a gay-rights affiliate of the party. “Finally seeing us appropriately represented is just a thrill.”
It also shows how far the Democrats have evolved since Bill Clinton, now a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage, signed a bipartisan bill in 1996 defining marriage as a one-man, one-woman union.
The Republican Party, by contrast, did not try to tally the number of gay delegates at its convention in Tampa, Fla. R. Clarke Cooper of Log Cabin Republicans, which represents gay GOP voters, estimated that there were “a few dozen” gay and lesbian delegates, and said he was glad that his party “doesn’t do identity politics.”
“I’d hate to think I’d been selected for something because of my orientation,” said Cooper, suggesting that the Democratic Party and the Obama administration risked being viewed as pandering to gays as part of a “divide-and-conquer” strategy catering to special-interest groups.
Democrats unveiled a party platform at their national convention Monday that echoes President Barack Obama’s call for higher taxes on wealthier Americans while backing same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Delegates voted Tuesday to adopt the platform that reflects the president’s argument that his work is unfinished and he deserves another four years to complete the job.
“Today, our economy is growing again, al-Qaeda is weaker than at any point since 9/11, and our manufacturing sector is growing for the first time in more than a decade. But there is more we need to do, and so we come together again to continue what we started,” the platform said.
The document is a sharp contrast from the policy statement that the Republican Party adopted at its convention last week. The Republican plan would ban abortion and marriage equality, repeal Obama’s health care overhaul law and shift Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly, into a voucher-style program.
Democrats acknowledged that divergent views.
“This election is not simply a choice between two candidates or two political parties, but between two fundamentally different paths for our country and our families,” the Democrats said.
In a nod to dissenters on gay marriage, the platform expresses support for “the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.”
As with the deeply conservative Republican platform, not all of which Romney endorses, nothing binds Obama to the specifics of the party’s manifesto.
The president rallied in Virginia on Tuesday while his wife delivered a powerful speech intended to â┚¬Å”remind people about the values that drive my husband to do what he has done and what he is going to do for the next four years. I am going to take folks back to the man he was before he was president.”
Michelle Obama played those cards with force in a speech declaring that after four years as president, her husband is still the man who drove a rust-bucket on early dates, rescued a coffee table from the trash and knows the struggles of everyday Americans because he lived them in full.
“I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are,” the first lady said to lusty cheers Tuesday night in a deeply personal, yet unmistakably political testimonial highlighting the Democratic National Convention’s opening night.
Recalling life before Washington, Mrs. Obama spoke of the “guy who’d picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger-side door.” She described a marriage of kindred spirits, both from humble roots, and said the president’s work on health care, college loans and more all come from that experience. “These issues aren’t political” for him, she said. “They’re personal.”
“Barack knows what it means when a family struggles,” she said. “He knows what it means to want something more for your kids and grandkids.”
The first lady took the stage as the most popular figure in this year’s presidential campaign. Michelle Obama earns higher favorability ratings than her husband, Romney, his wife, Ann, or either candidate for the vice presidency, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll. And views of Mrs. Obama tilt favorably among independents and women, two focal points in her husband’s campaign for re-election.
Several speakers on Tuesday addressed the DNC's stance on marriage equality, including San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who gave the keynote speech.
“We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don’t accept is the idea that some folks won’t even get a chance,” Castro said. “And the thing is, Mitt Romney and the Republican party are perfectly comfortable with that America.”
He added, “I don’t think Gov. Romney meant any harm. I think he’s a good guy. He just has no idea how good he’s had it,” â┚¬â€ a pointed jab at Romney’s considerable wealth.
Castro also taunted Romney for his shifting positions on issues like abortion rights, gay marriage and his own push for universal health care as governor of Massachusetts.
“Gov. Romney has undergone an extreme makeover, and it isn’t pretty,” Castro said.
