October 23, 2016.
Hillary in most polls is up 8–12 points, but your vote is about life and death. Here’s why you must vote for Hillary.
You have no choice but to vote for Hillary Clinton. Your very life depends on it.
This is LGBT History Month, and we’re also at the close of a very contentious presidential campaign, an interesting convergence.
One thing we as a community learned from the AIDS epidemic was to organize, since we were fighting for our lives. We have a new generation that does not know what that time was like, what that statement meant or how it shadows this election.
The LGBT community of the 1980s was in sheer shock. Gay men were dying and no one seemed to care. Some officials went so far as to suggest we should quarantine gay men. Some religious people suggested AIDS was a message from God. Scientists were unsure what to do. Why? The Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health did not feel they should act quickly in a time of a major health issue since they received silence from elected officials, namely President Ronald Reagan. Even Reagan’s Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, admitted years later he felt guilt for the many lives lost due to their inaction. In times of crisis, a president can make all the difference.
What about today? We’re still fighting AIDS, and funds need to be spent to find a cure. Apart from the epidemic, LGBT lives are at stake in other areas.
Take, for example, Uganda. The country keeps attempting to pass legislation that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by the death penalty.
What does it have to do with the election in our country? Donald Trump has been endorsed by the very evangelicals who support this legislation. To date, it was only the Obama administration that has kept this from becoming law. If Donald Trump were to be elected, do we want to take the chance? We’re not playing with the lives of our LGBT community.
And how about here in the United States? Trump’s vice-presidential running mate believes in conversion therapy. Conversion therapy—and let’s not mince words here—is the torture and imprisonment of LGBT youth. It’s just the latest term of aversion therapy.
Still not enough?
When the Pulse Nightclub was the target of what looks like antigay terrorism, Trump at first would not mention the word “LGBT.” Instead, he said he would not allow Muslims into our country. The fact that the man who did this was a Muslim was all he cared about—as well as making a few campaign points. He did not care about our lives. Trump then said he’d stop terrorists from coming into this country to do what they did at Pulse. What about the antigay terrorists who are Americans? Oh, he’s standing on a stage with them, shaking their hands and accepting their endorsements.
Vote like your lives depend on it. They do.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. His recently published memoir, And Then I Danced, is available on Amazon.com.
©2016 by Mark Segal.
