also appears in the New York Blade.
John Edwards Can Convert Promises Into Action
By Kevin Jennings
Friday, January 25, 2008
LGBT folks have great reason to rejoice about the three major Democratic candidates (and great reason to despair about their Republican counterparts, but that’s another column for another day…). While there are policy differences among them—Senator Edwards, for example, supports a complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, while Senator Clinton only supports a partial repeal—all three support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), ending the Don’t; Ask, Don’t Tell military ban, and creating civil unions. It’s the most pro-LGBT slate ever.
So, with the candidates mostly saying all the right things, how do we choose? For me, it comes down to this: Who can we trust to convert their rhetoric to legislative action? Let me explain why I believe Sen. Edwards is the one most likely to do so.
Partly, it’s because I “get” John Edwards. Like him, I grew up in a small North Carolina town and worked throughout my undergraduate years to become the first in my family to earn a college degree. Unlike the families of Sen. Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, John’s parents never got the chance to go to college nor did they have the ability to send their kids to private schools; they were working people decidedly outside the privileged elite.
That experience marked him for life. Sen. Edwards has spent his entire career fighting for the disenfranchised—first as a lawyer representing families harmed by defective corporate products, then as a senator who spent his own money to unseat a Red State Republican incumbent anointed by Jesse Helms. He’s the only candidate who has never taken money from Washington lobbyists, as he knows those lackeys of the powerful always want something back for their contributions. He’s his own person.
IF YOU’VE WATCHED the campaign closely, you’ve noticed John Edwards talks about very different subjects than his opponents. He announced his candidacy in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans and said that his biggest goal is ending poverty in America. He talks about the homelessness in virtually every speech. Homeless and poor people are hardly powerful voting blocs, so John isn’t mentioning these issues because they win him political points. He’s talking about them because fighting for those left out is what he’s always done. As hard as I listen, I rarely hear words like “poverty” and “homeless” in Senators Clinton and Obama’s speeches. A different calculus seems to be at work.
And John Edwards isn’t afraid to say when he’s been wrong. Unlike Sen. Clinton, John has acknowledged he was wrong to vote for the war in Iraq and has apologized for his mistake. I don’t expect leaders to be perfect, but I do expect them to be big enough people to admit their mistakes and to not repeat them as Sen. Clinton did by voting for a resolution last fall condemning Iran that was clearly the Bush-Cheney regime’s first step toward another disastrous war with another country that we now know also had no weapons of mass destruction.
SO WHAT ABOUT Senators Obama and Clinton? Ironically, Sen. Obama reminds me of a Presidential candidate who started his run in 1991, the year Obama graduated from law school—a national newcomer named Bill Clinton. I remember being moved by then-Governor Clinton’s incredible rhetoric and pledges to do historic things like lifting the ban on gays in the military. I remember my crushing disappointment as that rhetoric faded when the political going got tough and, as Melissa Etheridge put it, then-President Clinton “threw us under the bus” and enacted a new law called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I’d like to believe that rhetoric always leads to change but I just can’t. I need to hear less rhetoric and more ironclad commitments about what kinds of “change” Sen. Obama will bring and see more accomplishments than he has given us in his three years in the Senate, one of which has been devoted to running for President, not running the country.
As for Sen. Clinton, her argument is her experience. Since she was First Lady longer than she’s been a Senator, that experience is part of the equation and it disturbs me. Where was she when President Clinton abandoned his pledge to lift the military ban (we now know Al Gore opposed that vigorously; we know nothing about Hillary’s input)? Where was she when he signed DOMA? After all, despite the beautiful rhetoric and symbolic acts, the Clinton administration’s only legislative “accomplishments” for LGBT people were Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA, both victories of political expediency over principle. I have little reason to believe that the Clinton Restoration would be governed more by principle than politics and—like Etheridge—I have no desire to be thrown under the bus again.
AND THERE’S ONE last reason why I am backing Sen. Edwards: I am desperate to avoid another four years of Republicans. Need I remind everyone that the last Northern Democrat to win the White House, John F. Kennedy, did so in 1960—the year before Barack Obama was born. CNN found John was the only Democrat who defeated every Republican in head-to-head matchups. We Democrats can’t expect to take back the White House (or hold on to the Senate or House) if we write off half the country.
In the end, all relationships—personal and political—are based on trust. I trust that John Edwards can win the White House and will do as President what he’s always done: fight for those left out—the poor, the homeless, and, yes, the LGBT community. So he’ll be getting my vote on Feb. 5.
Kevin Jennings is founder and Executive Director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national education organization working to make schools safe for LGBT students, staff, and families.