Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominees for president and vice president, offer a path to a brighter future rather than a doom-and-gloom dystopia. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Dallas Voice endorses Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
Tammye Nash | Managing Editor
nash@DallasVoice.com
Where is no doubt that this has been a most unusual election year. There is no doubt that the partisan divide in our country grows ever deeper, ever wider. And few would argue that the 2024 presidential election could — likely will — irrevocably change this nation, for better or for worse.
It depends on which side of that partisan chasm you stand, on which outcome — Harris or Trump — would be for the better, and which would be for the worse.
What if you are watching this presidential race from across the LGBTQ rainbow, as we are here at Dallas Voice? Which candidate would be our best bet? No candidate is perfect, of course. But which would be the best president for the LGBTQ community?
Let’s take a look at each candidate’s record, starting with Donald Trump.
As president, Trump opposed The Equality Act, which would have guaranteed critical non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people among other crucial rights. He also appointed a frightening number of anti-LGBTQ judges to the bench at every level of the judicial system — including the U.S. Supreme Court, which is now ruled by right-wing justices who have already snatched away women’s right to control their own bodies and are just salivating over the chance to reverse landmark rulings on LGBTQ civil rights, including marriage equality.
The Trump administration submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting discrimination against LGBTQ people. Trump’s administration banned transgender people from service in the U.S. military and enacted a rule that forced HIV-positive servicepeople out of the military. He also rolled back nondiscrimination policies enacted under President Barack Obama and issued numerous rules and policies allowing “religious exemptions” to be carved out of other nondiscrimination laws.
Transgender Americans were a favorite target for Trump and his government. In addition to banning trans people from the military, rules enacted under Trump allowed emergency shelters to turn away trans and gender-nonconforming people, and he placed incarcerated trans people in the wrong prison facilities.
And in the schools, the Trump administration eliminated Department of Education guidances protecting trans students and requiring schools to treat trans students consistently with their gender identities.
There is more — so very much more — on list of Trump administration attacks on our community during his four years in the White House. But, you say, surely Trump did something for our community? Well, he did appoint the first gay man — Richard Grennell — to an ambassadorship. And … well, I am sure there is something else, but I don’t know what it is.
But what about Vice President Kamala Harris? Where does she stand?
Harris has a history of supporting LGBTQ equality that goes back at least 20 years, to her days as San Francisco’s district attorney, when she officiated at some of the first legal same-sex weddings in the U.S. While those marriages were later nullified by a California Supreme Court ruling, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Obergefell marriage equality ruling, then state Attorney General Harris was once again in the forefront, officiating at weddings and calling clerks who balked at issuing the licenses to let them know they were legally required to do so.
Also as California AG, Harris led efforts to ban “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses in criminal cases. As a U.S. senator, she has supported efforts to enact protections for the LGBTQ community, including the Equality Act and the Respect for Marriage Act.
And of course, as President Joe Biden’s vice president, Harris has been second in command in what is widely considered the most pro-LGBTQ administration in U.S. history. And she has given every indication that she would work not just to protect those rights already in place, but to expand them.
Harris has, however, been criticized on some issues, including her refusal, as attorney general, to give a transgender inmate permission to undergo gender-affirming surgery while incarcerated.
What about the presidential candidates’ respective vice presidential running mates?
Democrat Tim Walz, during his time as a high school teacher and football coach, was the faculty advisor for his school’s gay-straight alliance, and the students there remember him fondly as a staunch ally who was supportive and accepting of everyone.
Republican J.D. Vance has made no bones about his opposition to LGBTQ rights, condemning “childless cat ladies” and even opposing in vitro fertilization, the method through which many LGBTQ couples create their families.
Of course, I have just barely scratched the surface on both sides. As I said, no candidate is perfect — neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. But when it comes the Harris/Walz ticket and the Trump/Vance ticket, the choice — whichever choice you make — is very clear cut.
On the right wing, you have a candidate who describes the U.S. as a dystopian wasteland teetering on the verge of collapse and chaos, which can only be saved if he steps in and strong-arms everyone into his ideal of “law and order.”
That ideal looks frighteningly like Putin’s Russia or even Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and anyone who disagrees or just doesn’t fit in conveniently disappears.
On the other hand, you have a candidate campaigning with joy, promising a better future, one in which everyone is accepted and respected, rather than just a select few.
The choice is clear: A Trump presidency that threatens doom and gloom and wants to push us backward, or a Harris presidency that promises to lead us forward into a brighter day for everyone.
For most of our 40 years in publication, Dallas Voice has deliberately chosen not to endorse political candidates. We left that to the students of policy and politics.
But in 2016 and again in 2020, after much debate and careful consideration, Dallas Voice issued endorsements in the presidential race — first for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump and then for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
In both of those elections, we felt the danger Trump posed to our community and our country was far too great not to speak up.
And now in 2024, we once again believe that the stakes are far too high to stay silent on the sidelines. So once again, Dallas Voice is endorsing a presidential candidate.
In doing so, we choose the path forward. We choose progress rather than regression. We choose joy over doom-and-gloom.
That is why Dallas Voice is endorsing Kamala Harris for president and Tim Walz for vice president.