LGBTQ+ leaders from across the region partnered with the Human Rights Campaign, Philadelphia Democratic Party, and Pennsylvania Democratic Party to host a Get Out the Vote for Kamala Harris event on Nov. 1 in the courtyard at John C. Anderson Apartments, a local LGBTQ-friendly apartment building for seniors.
Jason Landau Goodman, the LGBT Outreach Director in Pennsylvania for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign; Rue Landau, the first openly LGBTQ+ Philadelphia City Councilmember; newly elected State Rep. Andre Carroll; and PGN Publisher Mark Segal addressed a crowd of about 50 people, speaking on a variety of issues — including marriage equality, voter canvassing, book bans, gay and trans panic defenses and other topics of interest to the LGBTQ+ community.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who also spoke at a rally in Allentown earlier in the day, was the guest of honor. Healey is known for leading efforts to challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 2007 when she served as chief of the Civil Rights Division of the state’s Attorney General’s office. Under her guidance, Massachusetts became the first to legally challenge the constitutionality of the federal law — which reserved marriage as a right only for heterosexual couples.
Healey is now the first woman to lead the state as governor. She was elected alongside Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek in 2022, becoming the first open lesbians to ever serve as United States governors. Throughout the year-and-a-half she’s been in office, Healey has protected LGBTQ+ rights and supported other marginalized people by signing a uniform parentage act, increasing coverage of fertility treatment for LGBTQ+ veterans, expanding maternal health coverage, protecting access to emergency abortion care and spending more state funds on LGBTQ+ businesses.
Healey had already made history before taking over as governor — becoming the first open lesbian to serve a US state as attorney general when she was elected in 2014. During that tenure, she sued the Donald Trump administration nearly 100 times.
She’s recently been campaigning across the country for Vice President Harris and gave a rousing speech to the crowd in the courtyard. After some brief remarks about her trip to Pennsylvania, Healey spoke about the feelings voters may have about the election.
“I understand people are tense, people are nervous, and they should be, because everything is on the line,” she said. “But I too agree that what you do with that nervousness and anxiety is [that] you work, which is what you’re doing today by showing up, and what you’re going to do over the next four days.”
She went on to detail some of her notable advocacy work for the LGBTQ+ community.
“After some time in a big firm, I ended up in the Attorney General’s office as head of the Civil Rights Division, and that is where I actually met [my wife] Joanna [Lydgate],” Healey said. “We worked together in the Attorney General’s Office many, many years ago, and we put together and brought the very first successful challenge to DOMA, and it was a case that people did not think we could win. I told my boss at the time we had about a 30% chance of winning, which is probably an overestimate, but I wanted to get her approval and file it. We ended up having to sue then President Obama and Vice President Biden, and went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and we won that case.”
The crowd applauded this statement. Healey added that this inspired her to run for Attorney General before eventually taking office as governor. She then noted Harris’s pro-LGBTQ+ record, which includes sponsoring and filing legislation to fight against discrimination, and ensuring that insurance providers cover PrEP for patients. Additionally, she explained how Walz — a former high school football coach — worked as an adviser for his school’s gay-straight alliance.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has been so pro-equality out of the gate,” she said. “We cannot go back. And I am thrilled that she is going to be the next president.”
She then urged the crowd to rally others to turn out at the polls.
“We’re four days away, and we need every single vote,” Healey said. “We need everybody to get out to talk to their loved ones, to text, to call, to knock on doors, to make sure everybody has voted or has a plan to vote. And I’m talking to all of you because I know you’re all going to vote. You’re going to get out there if you haven’t voted already, but the job is to go find two, three, five more people, because that is going to be the margin in this race. It’s your individual effort, actually, but it’s going to be part of making the difference in this race.”
She also detailed what was on the line if Trump was re-elected.
“Donald Trump becomes president, that’s the end of marriage equality,” she said. “Donald Trump becomes president, we’re going to see LGBTQ books banned. We’re going to see access to health care, treatments, surgeries, prescriptions [and] medication taken away. We’re going to see people persecuted and vilified and ostracized. Donald Trump thinks so little of the LGBTQ community. I think the only person who thinks even less is JD Vance. I mean, have you heard this guy in the last 48 hours? It is so ugly and so unbelievable. For folks who had the opportunity to foster or adopt children, that’s going to go away too. So please get out there and remind people what is on the line for our community.”
Healey also cited how Trump appointed a mostly conservative Supreme Court, which made an impact on reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ protections. She reflected on Philadelphia’s historic significance, particularly the founding documents that championed American freedoms. With the country nearing its 250th anniversary, she emphasized that these freedoms are at risk, given the current climate of hate, white supremacy and antisemitism.
“What Donald Trump and JD Vance and Elon Musk — for anyone who’s still on X — are enabling and fomenting and promulgating is the most antisemitic rhetoric that we have seen, and it’s unbelievable that it’s coming by and through a person who thinks he has a right to be in the Oval Office,” she said, adding that Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly recently commented on Trump’s reverence to Adolf Hitler’s generals.
She underlined that it’s “hard to believe that a person [who] is seeking to lead the greatest country on Earth in this moment, is somebody who reveres Hitler’s generals and is engaged in so much antisemitism. It just breaks my heart and it sickens me.”
There’s a lot going on in our country,” Healey said. “There are a lot of strong feelings about a lot of things. We’re a democracy, after all, and a lot of challenging things are happening, but people need not be confused or distracted, because if we lose this election to this wannabe tyrant/dictator/authoritarian, everything is lost. Anything you care about, anywhere in the world, any place you care about, it’s all lost. Talk to people about that, because that’s really what’s on the line.”
Healey noted a tradition for the governor of Massachusetts, where each governor has hung a portrait of a former governor for inspiration. She held a contest for school children asking what she should do with this space.
“I go back to this one essay, and they said, ‘Governor, don’t hang a portrait. Just hang a frame. And every morning, when you walk into that office, you should think about those who aren’t walking the halls of power, who are very vulnerable, and you should let that guide your way,’” she said as the audience applauded.
School children now come into the office, take their picture and then superimpose themselves into the frame. Healey emphasized that “representation matters,” praising Harris for her lifelong dedication to serving others and understanding the importance of this responsibility. In contrast, she described Trump as self-serving, claiming he consistently acts in his own interest, harming individuals, families, communities and even nations.
Healey concluded her speech by urging the audience to stay engaged and motivate others to vote.
“This has to be our greatest moment of work, of intentionality, of energy, of love and of faith,” she said. “We bring that every day. We’re going to bring out the vote in Philadelphia. We’re going to bring home Pennsylvania, and we will bring home a new day for this country. It will be true to its ideals and freedoms that we offer.”
