Religious Right Groups Break Out The Scare Tactics To Keep Discrimination Legal In Houston

On November 3, the city of Houston will vote on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which creates city-wide nondiscrimination protections, including for the LGBT community. Opponents of HERO, organized as the so-called “Campaign For Houston,” have been escalating their rhetoric demonizing the LGBT community, and a new ad demonstrates just how far they’re willing to go to suggest that transgender women are violent sexual predators.

A new ad spot posted on YouTube Monday shows a little girl entering a restroom. “Any man at any time could enter a women’s bathroom simply by claiming to be a woman that day,” the ad falsely claims. “Even registered sex offenders could follow women or young girls into the bathroom.” As a man sneaks out of a separate stall and enters the girl’s stall, the ad ironically claims that HERO “goes too far.” Watch it:

The extreme fearmongering in the ad is in line with the other kinds of statements the Campaign for Houston has been issuing of late. Whereas in September, the campaign’s ads claimed that transgender women are “filthy, disgusting, and unsafe” and implied that HERO puts women and children “at risk” and “in harm’s way,” the group’s statements have tried to raise the stakes even more since then.

The Campaign for Houston’s new website claims that “other cities and states with these laws have seen sexual predators use them to violate and hurt women and children,” even though that’s factually untrue. A video displayed prominently on the site features a sermon from Homer Edwin Young (a.k.a. “Dr. Young”), senior pastor at Second Baptist Church Houston, in which he decries HERO as “absolutely godless,” “totally deceptive,” and “deadly.” He also claims that his wife saw a “man” walk out of a women’s restroom. Watch it:

A group of Houston’s pastors used similar high-stakes rhetoric at a rally against HERO last week, hosted by Second Baptist. One pastor, unnamed by ABC 13’s news report, condemned HERO as “deadly, decisive, and damning.” Dr. Floyd Williams Sr., of Antioch Church, said he believes “HERO is the most dangerous thing that’s ever been orchestrated in the city of Houston.”

Houston Unites, the Yes on Prop 1 campaign, is trying to counter this demonizing rhetoric by showing that people all over Houston support the LGBT protections. Richard Carlbom, who is managing the Houston Unites campaign, told ThinkProgress that the opposition’s rhetoric will have an impact, sparking fear and anxiety for voters. “Parents will see this ad — children will see this ad — and will become afraid.”

One ad they’re running to counter these claims features moms from across the city explaining how they’ll benefit from HERO’s pregnancy nondiscrimination protections, noting that the law “protects women from discrimination, victimization, and harassment.” They correct the myths put out by opponents, explaining, “Indecent exposure, harassment, and assault in bathrooms is already illegal. Proposition 1 won’t change that. It won’t allow men to enter women’s restrooms and it won’t allow someone to escape prosecution for criminal behavior.”

Houston Unites has been working with the Houston Area Women’s Center in mythbusting what HERO’s opponents have been saying about sexual violence. “When the opposition puts commercials on air like this,” Carlbom explained, “it really does distract and confuse people in terms of where sexual predators actually operate.” Unlike the scary portrayal in the latest ad, sexual predators are generally not stalking the bathrooms; most perpetrators actually know their victims. “What this does is shift the focus away to something that is just not true, and they’re doing it for political purposes.”

Houston Unites’ latest ad features Ed Gonzalez, a retired police officer and father of four girls. “In cities in Texas with similar laws,” he explains, “there’s been no uptick in public safety incidents.” Another ad features some of Houston’s religious leaders who do support HERO, countering opponents’ narrative that the law would allow “reverse discrimination for people who believe in God.”

One of the most poignant ads supporting the passage of HERO so far introduces Dylan, a contractor who identifies as a transgender man. His coworker Steven explains that when Dylan came out as transgender, he was uncomfortable at first, “but over time, we got past it.” Watch it:

Opponents of HERO, who insist that people use the restroom that matches the gender they were assigned at birth, would ironically require Dylan, a man, to use the women’s restroom. In other words, the Campaign for Houston’s rhetoric not only demonizes transgender women as sexual predators and murderers; it’s also backwards. HERO’s LGBT protections would ensure that transgender men like Dylan can safely use the men’s room.

The post Religious Right Groups Break Out The Scare Tactics To Keep Discrimination Legal In Houston appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Zack Ford

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/10/14/3712002/houston-lgbt-sexual-predator-ads/

Concert Pianist Simon Ghraichy Gears Up For Carnegie Hall Debut

More than anything, Simon Ghraichy is proud to be a citizen of the world. 

The 29-year-old concert pianist, who was born in Lebanon to a Lebanese father and a Mexican mother and resides in Paris, sees his Oct. 15 performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream because, more than any other venue, it represents his own unique background. 

“Every culture is welcome here,” he told The Huffington Post in an interview. “We have a special appreciation for that in Europe because you don’t find it there. I have a mixed background, and that’s something that’s unusual in Europe. Here, I feel at home.”

Ghraichy, who is openly gay, is currently in support of his forthcoming album, “Duels,” which is slated for release this fall. His Carnegie debut is the first stop in a “Liszt and the Americas” tour that will also take him to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The program will feature “Piano Sonata in B Minor” by Franz Liszt, whom Ghraichy calls a personal inspiration, along with works by Lecuona, Ponce, Godowsky and Villa-Lobos — representing the performer’s diverse talent and tastes. 

Ghraichy took time out from his busy rehearsal schedule to speak to The Huffington Post, discussing his renewed outlook as he gears up for his New York debut. Here’s what he had to say. 

What are your thoughts about performing in Carnegie Hall?

I can’t express enough how blessed I feel and how happy I am, especially because it’s my first concert in New York City. Carnegie is every boy’s dream. From childhood on, you hear about Carnegie Hall. You watch videos of superstars – not only classical superstars, but also pop superstars – all playing Carnegie Hall. It’s a very mythical place, and to be part of that is really something.

Carnegie is a reflection of the American culture, a culture where everything is still possible. Every culture is welcome here. 

How would you describe your musical approach, and how is it unique?

I think that the main characteristic in my work is curiosity. I’m very curious to discover new works.

I think it’s very important to take advantage of one’s background, not only in art, but in anything. It should just be a way of life. I’m very close to my roots, and…to be close to Mexican roots, to my Lebanese roots, to my Jewish roots…and to live as a modern Parisian, a modern Frenchman.

 As an out artist, do you feel it is a responsibility to support gay causes?

Gay causes are like any kind of minority causes. They deserve to be supported. The arts are a very close way and very honorable way to support them.

I haven’t got the chance to offer a concert for gay causes… but I would love to, if I had the opportunity. It’s not a matter of sexuality; it’s a matter of humanity.

You’ve accomplished a lot in the classical music world. What areas are you hoping to pursue next?

I think I still have a lot to learn and accomplish. It’s such a vast science. I just let myself be guided by the music. 

Now I’ve had many experiences, many stage experiences, many human encounters that [changed] my life. Friendships, people who surrounded me in my career, friends, family, teachers. It’s very important as an artist to have the right surroundings in your daily life in order to focus to give the best of yourself on the stage and in your art. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length. 

Simon Ghraichy will perform “Liszt and the Americas” at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Oct. 15. For more information, head here. 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Topher Payne’s ‘Perfect Arrangement’ Takes on Govt’s Anti-Gay Witch-Hunt: INTERVIEW

Perfect Arrangement, which opens Off-Broadway October 15 at Primary Stages, gives a lesser-known — and totally terrifying — moment in gay history a clever sitcom treatment. Written by Atlanta-based scribe Topher Payne, the play is set during the “lavender scare” in the 1950s, when the U.S. state department fired hundreds of employees over allegations of homosexuality. The government’s internal witch-hunt, which rode the tide of McCarthyism, deemed gay men and women deviants and national security threats.

Payne’s story finds government higher-up Bob Martindale (Robert Eli) tasked with leading the hunt, along with his secretary, Norma Baxter (Julia Coffey). The thing is, Bob’s got a boyfriend, Jim Baxter (Christopher J. Hanke), and Norma’s got a girlfriend, Millie Martindale (Mikaela Feely-Lehmann) — they’re married to each other’s same-sex sweethearts. Not only that, but they live in adjoining townhouses — connected by a two-way closet (naturally).

The premise paves the way for plenty of revolving-door antics, and ultimately, the threat of serious consequences should the couples’ secret be discovered. Through what Payne calls “the farce of attempting to pass,” the play explores what it means to hide who you are, and why coming out is as political as it is personal. Nearly two decades before the Stonewall riots, the nascent beginnings of the gay rights movement began in reaction to the lavender scare.

I spoke to Payne about his inspiration for the play, the surprising history behind it, and why celebrating “straight-acting” gay people is a problem.

Naveen Kumar: Can you tell me a bit about where you got the idea for this play?

Topher Payne: I read [The Lavender Scare by David Johndon] and was so compelled by the story of what had gone down in the ‘50s and frustrated with the fact that this was not a piece of our history that all of us know.

 

In 2009, I got married in Massachusetts and came back to Georgia, where my marriage license was purely decorative. My husband took my name when I got married… it was just smart if something happened to us… It was just easier if we had the same last name to prove that we were family, and then we could just be brothers or cousins or whatever the situation called for. There was such an absurdity to that, which was of course frustrating and soul-sucking, and also just really funny… At some point, the story that became the Martindales and the Baxters really grew out of that.

RELATED: ‘Lavender Scare’ Documents Government’s Gay ‘Witch Hunt’ Lasting Four Decades: VIDEOS

NK: What was the most surprising thing you discovered about gay and lesbian life in this period, when you dug into the history of the 1950s?

TP: The born-out-of-necessity collusion between the gay community and the lesbian community to protect each other. The first gay bar I ever called home was the one gay bar in Jackson, Mississippi, and because there was just the one, there were no divisions in the community. It was the black gay bar and the white gay bar and the lesbian bar and the trans bar, and everybody was in the pool together. Atlanta, of course, has a much more thriving and diverse queer community, so there’s enough of you to be able to form your own pockets within that community. Unfortunately, that can also result in a breakdown in communication between people who are having divergent life experiences.

So, reading The Lavender Scare, I felt that little piece of home, like, ‘Oh, I remember when we were all in this together.’ And they were in the trenches together, and there was this battlefield mentality of, despite any differences or disagreements, we have to keep each other safe. There’s something quite beautiful in that.

NK: Was there a history of people making the arrangement the couples do in the play, which is to enter a heterosexual marriage in order to have relationships on the side?

TP: Very much so, because it was the ultimate marriage of convenience. I don’t know that they were buying townhouses and connecting them by a closet (laughs). It was the ultimate marriage of convenience, everybody wins! There were many, many examples of that in the era.

NK: The people in the play are well to do, they’re white, they’re middle class. Why did you decide to look at this history from the perspective of people who are “hiding in plain sight” by following conventions rather than, say, more marginalized characters?

TP: I am well aware that this is my first play about a bunch of white people (laughs). That was certainly born out of the oral history that inspired the piece in the first place, which [was given by] government employees, who in 1950, would have been uniformly white and middle class to upper middle class… Of course, there were no people of color represented in popular culture at that time, and because the world of the play is so aspirational — they’re trying to live up to exactly what they see on television — creating this universe where everything is lily-white and exactly what’s on the cover of House Beautiful and TV Guide was really interesting to me.

There’s the moment in the show where Norma says, “You would never stand for this if they were doing this to Negros.” And he’s like, “Well, of course not, because that’s an immutable trait, that’s who they are.” And you see this interesting division in self-perception. Because we’re talking about a time when being queer was considered to be a mental illness at best.

NK: There’s a degree of self-loathing that comes along with being in the closet, whether from lacking the courage to come out or from thinking there’s something wrong with who you are. I thought these dynamics played out very interestingly in the play. Can you speak a bit about that?

TP: By the act of being closeted, you’re effectively colluding with the enemy. They’re telling you that there’s something shameful and wrong about the nature of your existence, and by choosing to fly under the radar, you’re acknowledging the veracity of that argument. They even say in the play, “This will never stop if we keep hiding.”

But I think it’s really interesting that something so clearly born out of necessity can end up making the problem so much harder to fight, because then you’re not standing together as a community. It wasn’t really until the government did this grand sweep of well-educated, well-spoken individuals who — now that they were marked with this brand and had nothing to lose — that you saw the first stirrings of the Mattachine Society. As in all things, the tactics of your oppressors can also be the very thing that presents an opportunity. And I find that encouraging.

NK: I hate to ask this question of writers, but considering how far we’ve come in the past year with the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, what do you hope audiences will take away from revisiting a time when things were so vastly different?

TP: What I hope they would take away from it is kind of the farce that’s built around passing. The gains we’ve made in visibility and respectability in American culture in the past decade are really unfathomable when you think about it. But we, as a queer culture, still place a really high value on passing, on your ability to assimilate into the culture at large. We celebrate our very feminine lesbians, we celebrate our very masculine gay men, we celebrate trans individuals who look like they were born the gender that they are presenting as. And we consider those successes.

One of the things I feel Perfect Arrangement addresses, or certainly attempts to address, is the farce of attempting to pass, attempting to craft yourself in the image of someone that you simply are not, rather than exploring in broader terms the identity you feel genuinely compelled toward.

We have the benefit of history and being able to look back and knowing that, as the characters in the show are starting to experience a world outside of their own home, there’s a long way to go. We’re seven years before the first public demonstrations in D.C. We’re 19 years before Stonewall. I’m so intrigued by that moment before, the moment that people have the first stirrings of, I deserve more than this.

I think in a lot of ways, we’re living in one of those times. Despite the rights that we’ve gained, they’re certainly not unchallenged. It’s an uphill battle, but it’s still a battle, so we can win it. I would love for my play to be less relevant, but frankly there are a lot of things that were introduced into American culture 65 years ago that are still very present today.

Perfect Arrangement is in performances at The Duke on 42nd Street through November 6.

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‘The Legend of Georgia McBride’ Teaches Intro to Drag Off Broadway: REVIEW
Hip-Hop Juggernaut ‘Hamilton’ Opens on Broadway: REVIEW
‘The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey,’ By Trevor Project Co-founder James Lecesne Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW

Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar (photos: james leynse)

The post Topher Payne’s ‘Perfect Arrangement’ Takes on Govt’s Anti-Gay Witch-Hunt: INTERVIEW appeared first on Towleroad.

Naveen Kumar

Topher Payne’s ‘Perfect Arrangement’ Takes on Govt’s Anti-Gay Witch-Hunt: INTERVIEW

Open Question: Do you support the LGBT community?

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151014041409AACrzQJ

PHOTOS: Finding Beauty in Skid Row

Cleis Abeni

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/10/14/photos-finding-beauty-skid-row

Anderson Cooper Earns High Marks As Democratic Debate Moderator

Depending on who you ask, the big winner in Tuesday night’s Democratic showdown was either Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, both or racial equality (for finally being discussed in a 2016 debate). One result was widely accepted though: CNN’s Anderson Cooper absolutely crushed it as a moderator.

“Anderson Cooper won the debate,” wrote Red State’s Erick Erickson.

“He asserted himself as the strongest figure of the presentation, candidates included,” wrote Mediaite’s Joe Concha. “In the end, Cooper showed why he’s one of the top journalists in the game: He was impeccably prepared, wasn’t hesitant to ask follow-up questions when warranted and didn’t offer up one question — not one — that could be considered frivolous or fluffy… A solid A.”

Cooper hammered each candidate with questions about their biggest weak spots. He asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee about their wavering political stances. He grilled Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb for their high marks with the NRA. He questioned former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s record as mayor of Baltimore, a city plagued by recent unrest. And he asked all of the candidates about their electability, putting the three Democrats who are polling in the single digits in a tough spot.

Cooper repeatedly refused to let candidates dodge questions or give non-answers:

“Senator Sanders, you have to give a response,” he said.

“Senator Sanders, you didn’t answer the question,” he said later.

“You agreed to these rules and you’re wasting time,” he told Webb. “So if you would finish your answer, we’ll move on.”

Cooper’s performance was well-received on Twitter:

 As Slate’s Justin Peters wrote, “I wish he could moderate all the debates.”

Related On HuffPost:

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Open Question: Why is incest frowned upon n the LGBT community,but not transgenderism?
I find people pretending to be the opposite sex weirder than two blood related adults consenting.

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151014022645AAdIn2m

The Library Is Open! Bette Midler Reads Justin Bieber’s Penis-Praising Pop

Justin Bieber’s father gave all of civilization the creepy-crawlies after he praised his son’s penis size, which was on full display when The Biebs was photographed taking a quick skinny dip while in Bora Bora.

But all is right in the universe once again, thanks to The Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, who reminds us of what is important in the world: slaying your enemies with just a passing comment.

Read her Tweet about Bieber’s father below:

 

Justin was raised by his mother, after his father (Jeremy) left them and married another woman. Reports say Bieber grew up poor, without much financial support from his father, but Justin has openly maintained a good relationship with his father and stepmother. Nevertheless, it is fun witnessing an icon giving Elder Bieber the beat-down.

Dan Renzi

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/NnlTE_kVsqE/the-library-is-open-bette-midler-reads-justin-biebers-penis-praising-pop-20151014

The Time the Boston Gay Men's Chorus Risked Their Lives in the Middle East

“They want to know if you are willing to perform as the Boston Men’s Chorus?”

I was surprised when I received this text, which was sent to me several hours into a tense negotiation between executives from the tour company organizing the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus trip to the Middle East and representatives of the Istanbul venue we were contracted to perform at in just six weeks’ time. In hindsight, of course, I should not have been.

Our plans to sing at the Zorlu Performance Center (ZPC) in Istanbul last June received major attention in media outlets across Turkey three months before our scheduled arrival. Conservative Islamist papers described us as “perverts,” and thousands of people signed a Change.org petition calling on ZPC’s owners to cancel our show because it would take place on the tenth day of Ramadan. ZPC responded by suspending ticket sales to our show.

My reply was short and to the point: “No.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but the refusal to take “gay” out of our name was the first of many forceful, though not always easy, decisions that resulted in the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus’ improbable―but historic―performance in Istanbul.

Last week, the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus published the final video from our June trip during which we performed six times over 10 days in Ein Gedi, Jersusalem, Tel Aviv, and Istanbul. This 11th and final video is the story of how and why our original Istanbul concert was cancelled, and what it took to put on the performance that ultimately took place before 5,000 people at Bosphorus University. With on-camera interviews featuring, among others, U.S. Consulate General to Istanbul Charles Hunter, whose intervention ensured our safety while in Turkey, the video is, as we like to say in the entertainment business, a “must see.”

The process of editing it nearly three months after the concert took place provided an opportunity for reflection on what we accomplished, and how we did it.

First lesson? Actions speak louder than words. In all of the media interviews that we did leading up to the showdown with ZPC executives, we were asked over and over again what the point was of identifying ourselves as gay. Implicit in the question was the assumption that we were putting sex before art, and being needlessly salacious. We patiently explained that in the United States, choral music performed by gay men was a 35-year-old tradition steeped in the civil rights movement. I don’t even want to think of the message we would have sent to Istanbul’s small, but passionate, LGBTI community if we had agreed to take the stage as the Boston Men’s Chorus, let alone the message we’d send to our members and supporters.

Second lesson? Hope for the best, but work like hell to make it happen. When ZPC executives abruptly cancelled our concert with less than five weeks to go, we had no idea where we would find another venue with a stage big enough to hold our 110 singers. We had no flexibility on our June 27 performance date, and thanks to the controversy, we were expecting large crowds, further exacerbating what was quickly turning into a security nightmare. With approval from university officials, the LGBTI student group at Bosphorus University offered us outdoor space. It wasn’t the best option for us acoustically, but they could accommodate the date―and large crowds.

Performing under less than ideal conditions is not new for the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. During our tour of Eastern Europe in 2005, we sang in Poland in spite of vocal protests from extremists that drew headlines around the world. Even with this history, I can assure you that saying that you abide by a set of principles to create musical experiences that “inspire change” is one thing. Adhering to them in a foreign country where a majority of the population not only doesn’t believe you deserve basic rights, but has been served up several months’ worth of sensational stories detailing your pending arrival and describing you as “perverted,” is quite another. Even more so when Twitter is ablaze the 48 hours before your entry into the country with tweets by radicals promising you, among other things, an “Islamist welcome” illustrated with an emoticon of a bulls-eye.

We were committed to performing. But we weren’t going to be stupid about it. We hired private security for our time in Turkey. And before flying out of Israel, we spoke directly with Consulate General Hunter about the threats―which escalated online daily as our concert date approached. Hunter and his security director assured us that US authorities were aware of and monitoring the threats. He also told us that he had informed the national Turkish government and municipal authorities in Istanbul that he would be attending our concert and sitting in the front row.  The Consul also sent a formal notice to the Turkish Government on our behalf.

Last lesson? When you stand on principle it might be lonely at first. But you quickly meet amazing allies. Istanbul has a passionate community of LGBTI activists who protested on our behalf outside the Zorlu Performance Center―no small thing in a country which largely bans public political expressions.

As a result, we were able to perform in Istanbul. More than 5,000 people jammed into the performance space: students decked out in rainbow garb; families with children; hipster singles; middle-aged couples. They danced in the aisles, cheered, and reveled in what was, ultimately, a rare expression of LGBT culture in a Muslim country, proving once again that stories of love, pride, and acceptance―communicated through song―resonate despite cultural and language barriers.

CRAIG COOGAN is Executive Director of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus.

 

Craig Coogan

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/10/14/time-boston-gay-mens-chorus-risked-their-lives-middle-east

Dems Differ With Republicans, Not Much With Each Other

Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate highlighted the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans far more than differences among the Democratic contenders.

Unlike the Republican debates so far, the first Democratic debate had no bashing of LGBT people or talk about “persecution” of people of faith — as a matter of fact, some candidates touted their support for LGBT causes. It had no demonization of immigrants. It had no denunciation of abortion or call to defund Planned Parenthood.

Indeed, some of the candidates pointed out those contrasts in their closing statements. “On this stage, you didn’t hear anyone denigrate women, you didn’t hear anyone make racist comments about new American immigrants, you didn’t hear anyone speak ill of another American because of their religious belief,” said former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. “What you heard instead on this stage tonight was an honest search for the answers that will move our country forward.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also commented on this, saying, “In this debate, we tried to deal with some of the very tough issues facing our country. That’s in stark contrast to the Republicans who are currently running for president.” 

There was little discussion of LGBT issues, but the few statements the candidates made had a positive tone. O’Malley praised the attitudes of young people. “Talk to our young people under 30, because you’ll never find among them people that want to bash immigrants or people that want to deny rights to gay couples,” he said, to much applause. “That tells me we are moving to a more connected, generous, and compassionate place, and we need to speak to the goodness within our country.” That was in his closing statement; in his opening statement he had touted passing the state’s marriage equality law as one of his accomplishments as governor.

Lincoln Chafee, who signed marriage equality into law when he was governor of Rhode Island, noted his support for that cause when answering moderator Anderson Cooper’s question about whether he was vulnerable for criticism for his switches in party affiliation, from Republican to independent to Democrat.

“I have not changed on the issues,” Chafee said. “I was a liberal Republican, then I was an independent, and now I’m a proud Democrat. But I have not changed on the issues. And I open my record to scrutiny. Whether it’s on the environment, a woman’s right to choose, gay marriage, fiscal responsibility, aversion to foreign entanglements, using the tools of government to help the less fortunate.” He switched affiliations, he said, because there was no longer a place for him in the Republican Party: “The party left me.”

Clinton, who in her opening statement said one of her goals as president would be addressing “the continuing discrimination against the LGBT community,” faced a question from Cooper about the fact that she has changed positions on marriage equality and other issues.

“You were against same-sex marriage,” the out CNN journalist said. “Now you’re for it. You defended President Obama’s immigration policies. Now you say they’re too harsh. You supported his trade deal dozen of times. You even called it the ‘gold standard.’ Now, suddenly, last week, you’re against it.”

Clinton replied that her principles had not changed, “but, like most human beings — including those of us who run for office — I do absorb new information.”

LGBT issues didn’t come up otherwise, and in general, the five participants largely were in consensus on major issues — with former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb slightly more conservative than the rest, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont generally somewhat more liberal.

The candidates agreed on the need to further regulate financial markets, reduce economic inequality, provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, reform the criminal justice system so fewer people go to jail for nonviolent crimes, address climate change, and limit military involvement around the world, with a few differences on just how to do this. For instance, Sanders and Clinton agree that making higher education more affordable would reduce the economic divide; Sanders wants free tuition at public colleges and universities, no strings attached, while Clinton would like to see students work in exchange for tuition waivers.

The candidates also highlighted some differences in their voting records. Sanders and Chafee, who is a former U.S. senator as well as a governor, both pointed out that they voted against U.S. military action in Iraq, which Clinton voted for as a senator from New York. Sanders called the Iraq war “the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country,” and he warned against U.S. intervention in the conflict in Syria, which he dubbed “a quagmire in a quagmire.” He suggested that Clinton would be more open to intervention than he would. Clinton, for her part, criticized Sanders’s votes against gun control measures.

Sanders also touted the differences in funding between himself and other candidates, saying he’s the only one without a super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, and that most of his supporters are small donors. The senator identifies as a small-D “democratic socialist,” and Cooper said a Republican attack ad on his positions would “write itself.”

Sanders replied that there’s a need to educate people about what democratic socialism is, that it embraces such policies as universal health care and paid family leave. As to whether Americans will vote for him, Sanders said, Republicans win when there is a low voter turnout. … Sixty-three percent of the American people didn’t vote, Anderson. Eighty percent of young people didn’t vote. We are bringing out huge turnouts, and creating excitement all over this country.”

All in all, there was little in the debate that appeared likely to change the status of Clinton and Sanders as the top contenders. Vice President Joe Biden could shake up the race if he decides to run, but he has not announced a decision.

The biggest applause of the night came in a discussion of the congressional inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she headed the State Department. “Tonight I want to talk not about my emails, but about what the American people want from the next president of the United States,” she said to much applause

Sanders interjected, “Let me say something that may not be great politics. But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” The crowd erupted even further, and did so again shortly thereafter, when Cooper asked Clinton if she wanted to comment on Chafee’s remarks about the email matter raising questions of credibility. She said simply, “No.”

If you missed the debate and want to see a full transcript, The Washington Post has one here, annotated with commentary.

Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/election/2015/10/13/dems-differ-republicans-not-much-east-other