Transgender, Bisexual Individuals Recognized For First Time Ever In A State Of The Union Speech
Transgender, Bisexual Individuals Recognized For First Time Ever In A State Of The Union Speech
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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama pushed for protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals Tuesday evening, making it the first time bisexual and transgender individuals have ever been recognized directly in a State of the Union address.
"As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened, which is why I've prohibited torture, and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained," said Obama, adding, "That's why we defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. We do these things not only because they're right, but because they make us safer."
Obama is also the first president to ever mention transgender individuals in any public speech, having done so in past contexts other than State of the Union addresses.
Obama declared marriage to be a "civil right" Tuesday night as well, just days after the Supreme Court announced it would take up the issue of marriage equality. This spring, it could finally rule whether it's unconstitutional to bar same-sex couples from getting married.
"I've seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in 10 Americans call home," said Obama.
Obama, who came out in support of same-sex marriage in May 2012, also tied gay rights to the civil rights fight in his second inaugural address. He said it was "our generation's task" to carry on what was begun at Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall -- centers of the fight for women's rights, African-American rights and LGBT rights, respectively.
"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he said.
It was the first time that a president had ever mentioned gay rights in an inaugural address, although some advocates were disappointed that he didn't include transgender rights as well.
Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in California, was thrilled with the inclusion of transgender and bisexual individuals in Tuesday's State of the Union speech.
"I listened to the State of the Union with bated breath. President Obama's public recognition of transgender people in his State of the Union address was historic," he told The Huffington Post. "It is time for the American public to become aware of our stories and struggles both at home and around the globe."
Last year, Obama took a number of steps to ban discrimination against the LGBT community, in particular transgender Americans. In July, he signed an executive order making it illegal to fire or harass employees of federal contractors based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The order also explicitly banned discrimination against transgender employees of the federal government.
Want more updates from Amanda? Sign up for her newsletter, Piping Hot Truth.HuffPost's Jen Bendery reports:
President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to urge Congress to pass legislation authorizing the ongoing war against Islamic State militants.
But the president gave no signs that he would start that process by sending Congress draft language for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force -- something lawmakers have been waiting for him to do for months. To the contrary, White House officials signaled earlier in the day that Obama might not send language at all.
Read the full story here.
Boehner does not clap for marriage equality.
- Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) January 21, 2015
Obama used it in 2014.
-- Kate Sheppard
-- Shahien Nasiripour
One word was noticeably missing from President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday: guns.
In a sign that the sun has set on Obama's gun control agenda, the president's prepared remarks contained no mention of the issue. Two years after the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the absence of guns from Obama's speech marked a departure from previous years, in which the president urged Congress to pass legislation aimed at reducing gun violence in America.
Read the full story here.
Hey, Trade Promotion Authority finally gets the GOP out of their seats!
- Mike O'Brien (@mpoindc) January 21, 2015
Last year's SOTU scored 33,299,172 viewers. (Nielsen only counts folks watching at home on TVs; no web streams.) This year: higher or lower?
- Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 21, 2015
The President's suiting up for the big speech. Tune into http://t.co/tmsUd5yh5y at 9pm ET #YesWeTan pic.twitter.com/FC8sKb8hda
- Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) January 21, 2015
-- Julia Craven"There's no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday," King said of President Obama on NewsMaxTV. "When you have the world watching... a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is gonna do. For him to walk out - I'm not trying to be trivial here - in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about the revision of second quarter numbers on the economy. This is a week after Jim Foley was beheaded and he's trying to act like real Americans care about the economy, not about ISIS and not about terrorism. And then he goes on to say he has no strategy."
Watch the interview below:
Watch the interview below:
HuffPost's Roque Planas reports:
Republicans' Spanish-language rebuttal to this year's State of the Union address will come largely from a politician who wants to make English the official language of the United States and sued to keep her state from printing voting materials in other languages.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), an immigration hard-liner, will deliver the traditional GOP rebuttal Tuesday night. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) will deliver the Spanish version of the Republicans' response, but it remains unclear whether the congressman will read a translated version of Ernst's remarks or give a more original speech.
House Republicans initially said in a Jan. 15 press release that Curbelo would read a translation of Ernst's speech. But by Tuesday, after Mother Jones reported on the irony of broadcasting Ernst's translated speech in Spanish given her positions, the press release had been edited. According to the Latin Post, which took a screenshot of the old version, the release no longer says that Curbelo's remarks will be a translation of Ernst's.
Read the full story here.
Read more here.
Read the full story here.
--Kimberly YamRead the full story here.
-- Robbie Couch
