Elizabeth Edwards will be joining hundreds of thousand of people at San Francisco's annual Gay Pride parade that happens this Sunday. She'll be giving a speech at the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club breakfast at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. I'm not sure how open the event is and what sort of crowd capacity the space has.
But this is a major deal.
To have a presidential candidate's spouse have an official appearance at one of the largest Gay Pride events in the world, is paradigm shifting. This makes me proud. This underscores why these events matter to gay people everywhere who seek acceptance and entry into the mainstream while retaining their unique perspective and historical legacy.
Do and dance and flip with me to the other side of this news ...
Some take home info from today's SF Chronicle's report on this announcement:
"It certainly is another barrier falling,'' said author and gay activist David Mixner, a Clinton administration adviser who backs Edwards in the 2008 race.
"There's been a taboo on any (candidate)-related Gay Pride events,'' he said, with major presidential hopefuls steering away because the event has been viewed largely in the mainstream media as a no-holds-barred celebration of the gay lifestyle.
"The myth of what Pride is will be exploded ... and that taboo will now be removed,'' he said. "And I can't think of a better person to do it than Elizabeth Edwards. She won't let people tell her where she can go and who she can talk to.''
Other commenters include:
- Gloria Nieto, the former DNC gay and lesbian caucus chair:
"The fact that Edwards' campaign is so forward thinking in that way shows that (gay political influence) is coming to fruition," Nieto said. "They're looking outside the Beltway and looking for other areas of gay power and influence.''
- Jeff Anderson, former co-chair of John Kerry's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender finance committee.
"Over the last 10 years, we've advanced so far from presidential candidates not wanting to show up,'' to discussing and even endorsing gay issues"
- Scott Wiener (no jokes, mkay), chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party
"The first is the growing clout of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community in politics, particularly Democratic party politics. The second is increasing acceptance of political candidates who hold pro-LGBT views -- especially since 10 years ago, candidate were much more skittish about that,'' he said. "And it shows John Edwards' strong support for the LGBT community ... he's been incredibly supportive."
This last point is one that was important to me. And one that should be important to other gay positive members of the Daily Kos community. There has been repeated conversation regarding John Edwards and his support of gay and lesbian issues vis-a-vis other candidates. There has been doubt cast that he is more conservative, more religious and less supportive on issues that matter to the GLBT community.
Let's put that to rest.
And if you're in SF get your walking shoes on and show your support for Pride this year.
Does anyone have more info about how to get into the event and listen Elizabeth?
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UPDATE:
You can get tickets to the event here: http://www.alicebtoklas.org/.... I'll be there. Hope you'll be there, too.
Thanks RandySF for the tip!