Hillary vs Obama: Gay Rights

[Turin]

My guess: she's located in New York and members of her campaign have probably been actively courting the many gay and lesbian advocacy groups which are located there. A drop-in and handshake shouldn't really matter more than policy positions, but human nature is funny that way.

Not to mention, anyone who knows her history ought to know that if a corporation cuts off donations due to her wanting to force them to give couple benefits to gays, she'll roll over. Look at health care - look at EVERYTHING.

That was pretty much my argument. I certainly understand why someone's position on gay rights is a deal-breaker -- if Obama had the policy position of the typical American Christian on gay rights, I'd probably have to vote for Hillary (holding my nose). In this case, the stances of both politicians are really close if not identical... but one of the two of them has demonstrated herself to be a politician at heart and too willing to vote with the wind (i.e. the war).

[CmdrWilkens]

Amazingly, I never considered "gay rights" stuff when deciding for which party to vote. This is one of the least interesting things for me. I prefer to vote for a party that is aligning with my general interests and ideas.

What is the legal status of gays in Germany? Because if you're more protected than the US, that makes a lot of sense in that many of your rights are established and protected and you don't have nearly the same kind of pressure to be a single issue voter. Not all American homosexuals are single issue voters, but its easy to understand why so many of them are.

Well, it's "more protected". I can "marry" my boyfriend, for instance in a civil union. Still some differences to a real marriage because our conservatives still want to seperate it from the normal marriage, but I guess it is just a matter of time until they be more open. We have gay party leaders, heads of governments, gays in all fields of social life.

Stil, in some areas, the more rural parts and a lot of Eastern Germany, being gay is still a bit of stuck with some negative feelings.

Contrast that with the US where only a few states at best offer anything resembling civil union or marriage and 37 out of 50 have no laws on the books making it illegal to discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation. Obviously its a huge problem where homosexuals exist as a second class of citizen.