New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, an open lesbian, has long fought for equality in the Empire State, and she’s now hitting the campaign trail to make sure equality will continue to reign in the White House.
“[President Barack Obama] is the most pro-woman, pro-LGBT president we have ever had in the history of the United States,” Quinn said in an interview with PGN last week.
Quinn, a rumored candidate in the next New York City mayoral race, has been traveling the country stumping for Obama, and will continue to work on behalf of the president in the weeks approaching the election.
Quinn attended the Democratic National Convention this past summer and said she was impressed by the level of attention given to LGBT issues by the president and many other speakers.
“When you go to these conventions as an LGBT activist, you hope and listen for that moment when someone will say something LGBT-related,” Quinn said. “There was no misinterpretation when the topic of same-sex marriage was discussed. It was the most front-and-center topic.”
The president’s own “evolution” on marriage equality hit home for Quinn, as it came the week before her own wedding to longtime partner Kim Catullo.
“I was incredibly proud of Barack Obama. It was enormously great,” she said. “He looked right in the camera and was very clear with America in the process he went through on the topic. He shows people that they can evolve, that they can be in one place and change. He was very dignified.”
Quinn’s marriage came about a year after New York sanctioned marriage equality.
She said she put in a lot of behind-the-scenes hours to make the law a reality.
“We did a lot of organizing and pulling the community together and focusing on everybody,” Quinn said.
Alongside volunteers and fellow council members, she helped raise money for the effort, lobbied state legislators and participated in phonebanking.
The hard work paid off for Quinn, who was devastated after a marriage-equality measure was defeated in 2009.
“I felt like the legislators had this opportunity to make things better for people and they chose not to,” Quinn said. “To see the state fix that and go back and put on record that the LGBT community is fully supported by the laws of New York was one of the most uplifting moments.”
Marriage equality is not the end of the road for LGBT rights in New York, Quinn said.
Among her goals, she plans to advocate for laws that better protect transgender citizens.
“Human rights does not include transgender people and that is unacceptable,” Quinn said. “We still have far too many hate crimes.”