On Tuesday, Americans will go to their respective polling places to cast their votes for the next leader of our country, who they think is best-suited to move our country forward.
Forward progress doesn’t mean the same thing to all voters. For LGBT people, forward movement means continuing to expand LGBT rights by building on the momentum that has snowballed in the last few years.
To look forward, we need to look back. The past eight years have been a time of tremendous progress for LGBT Americans. Under President Obama’s administration, LGBT inclusion has been worked into every fabric of American governmental regulation: from employment to education, and the military to the medical field. We added LGBT protections to a national hate-crimes law. We banned federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. We saw court rulings validating the identities and rights of transgender Americans. We celebrated national marriage equality.
Though Hillary Clinton would certainly lead in a different manner and model than President Obama, she is the best choice to continue this work. Electing anyone but her would mean a sudden halt to the progress that has marked the last eight years — and, worse than a halt, the advances could be reversed, the gains upended.
Our community has fought too hard for the victories we’ve seen to afford for that to happen. And there’s still too much to do. We need a federal law banning LGBT discrimination. We need further guidance on the rights of LGBT students. We need to have our communities counted in national data-collection efforts. We need more targeted efforts to promote our community’s health and access to equal opportunities.
We need people at the helm who understand where we need to go because they know where we’ve come from, and they support and appreciate the work that has taken our community to its current juncture.
Donald Trump is not that person. Sen. Pat Toomey is not that person. Republicans for the most part will not be those people.
We need strong leaders who can be strong allies. We’ve had that for the last eight years in part because our community rallied behind Barack Obama. Now is the time to again rally behind the candidates who can continue to carry our torch forward.