Aug 22, 2008  |  By: JOSHUA LYNSEN  | COMMENTS     

DENVER — Rick Stafford, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Americans Caucus, spoke with the Blade about the clout gays have within the party, what might happen if John McCain wins the White House, and the divisions that remain between supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Washington Blade: The point of a convention, ultimately, is to rally the troops and get everyone to vote for the nominee in November. LGBT voters, by and large, are already there. What more are you hoping for?

Rick Stafford: Well, I think it’s not safe to say that LGBT voters are there. I mean you have to remember that we had about 20 percent that voted for George Bush just even in 2004. It’s one of our jobs, of the ones who have voted Democratic in 2004 and continue to vote, those that are newly able to vote from our community that were not able to vote in 2004, we have to make sure that they’re not missed in our efforts and that we’re communicating to them, too. That’s a new generation.

There’s a lot of new generational politics going on here, and somehow how we send messages to them is different than my generation. And so that’s a challenge. Another challenge that we have to do is that we got to talk to those Republicans and those that have voted for the Republicans in the past that the smoke and mirrors of John McCain being a friend of our community is that — is not that.

And even if they may be not prioritizing equality issues, that John McCain is not with us on anything. To say that their argument in terms of economic or fiscal responsibility issues is there, if you really look at the record, John McCain does some very flashy stuff and a few cute votes, but the reality is this man supported congressional Republicans when they were in the majority, overall, in terms of what got us in this morass of deficit spending.
And also, his foreign policy. From what I’ve seen of his foreign policy, outside of the Iraq war, he supported George Bush down the line. Why do you think the Russians invaded Georgia? Because we are so weak. So we have to talk to those Republicans, not only about the LGBT-equality level, but we have to talk to them about the other messages in terms of why they should be voting for Barack Obama. Bringing them back into the fold, and bringing them into the fold for the first time, if that’s the case.

Blade: By the time the convention is done, do you think that there’s going to be an adequate amount of discussion on LGBT issues?

Stafford: Yeah. There’s always an ebb and flow. This is my ninth convention and there’s always an ebb and flow. And I look at it this way. My first convention was 1972. I was not out, but I was a page. We had five people as delegates or alternates. Five. Even with George McGovern, we were not considered part of that table or really in the family. And even in ’84, for the first time when we got the G and the L word mentioned in the platform, it was a struggle. Just look — alright, ’72 to 2008. That’s 30 years. You look at other civil rights movements in terms of where they are from where they started, we gained an awful lot. And this platform is the most inclusive LGBT kind of platform this party is ever going to adopt.

Blade: Even if it doesn’t have the words gay or lesbian in it?

Stafford: Yeah. That’s symbolism and I think we should be past that symbolism. I really do. As one who was very intimately involved in ’84 as a member of the platform committee, and a vice chair of the subcommittee there, I know what we went through to get the G and the L word. But that’s because we couldn’t get anything else. So it was symbolism. It was symbolism and important that we have arrived, that we have been recognized that we are part of the Democratic family and community.

And you know, we’re past that point. I’d rather have — if I could have had a tradeoff and the tradeoff was the party endorsing full marriage equality for all Americans, and especially same-sex Americans, versus having the G or an L word — duh. Anytime, you know? But we did that in terms of some of the language that was amended. There were some tradeoffs. That’s politics. And I know that there’s some grousing because of the G and the L word, or we seem to hop-skip around the marriage equality statement. But I just look at this — this is a great platform for our community. It didn’t shy away from things. It ...