Like the courageous civil rights champion U.S. Rep. John Lewis, I do not consider your presidency to be legitimate. As Rep. Lewis, the great ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., stated this week, the overwhelming evidence confirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies of interference by a foreign power hostile to the U.S. in favor of your election last fall has severely flawed that outcome.
Moreover, the manner of your seeking the presidency and your ongoing behavior since being declared the winner underscore this grievous concern. Still sadly, most of your Republican colleagues in Congress have shamefully embraced this sorry development to already advance legislation that will eliminate health care coverage for 22 million Americans.
Since the election of President Obama, our first African-American president, in 2008, you and your Republican allies, along with the so-called “Alt-Right” radical white supremacist fringe, have worked tirelessly to erode President Obama’s power and influence through brazen and callous appeals to racism, the very lowest and most degraded of dispositions, antithetical to the moral standards required to preserve our precious and tenuous democracy.
You spearheaded a high-profile “birther movement” to discredit the president by the same means that African-Americans have been unfairly disenfranchised throughout history. Your behavior was as shameful then as it is now. But it is about far more than your personal immorality. Indeed, you appear to be advancing a hostile takeover of our core democratic institutions by a foreign power that prefers authoritarian tyranny. As such, you, sir, are a grave danger to this nation.
With the American revolution and miraculous success crafting a Constitutional democracy that has endured stormy times to survive two centuries and two score years later, the abiding animating spirit of America has been an openly-embraced deference to the benefit of all in equal measure. Our founding mothers and fathers, emboldened as they were by the universal aspirations of the Great Enlightenment of their century, were keenly attuned to this sensibility, and written between all the lines of their brave actions and words has been an almost otherworldly optimism that informed their testaments to the shared and equal values of all human beings, most recently extended to my LGBT brothers and sisters. There is no America without such an animating generosity of spirit guiding her.
This spirit is the polar opposite of a disposition seeking advantage over others by exploitation through politics or business as you represent.
The opinions expressed in these letters are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations and this magazine, its staff and contributors.
Following President Joseph R. Biden's announcement on Sunday that he would be dropping out of this year's presidential race, many of the groups that were most fervently in his camp, including LGBTQ organizations, voiced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden abandoned his re-election bid after relentless pressure from party insiders and weeks of panicking from liberal activists following his disastrous performance against Donald Trump in a televised debate on June 27.
For weeks, pundits -- aided by the mainstream media -- called into question President Biden's age, physical fitness, and mental acuity, questioning whether the 81-year-old president could withstand the rigors of campaigning and whether he was the candidate best suited to articulate the Democratic Party's message and stances on various issues.
The official X account of the Teamsters Union clapped back at its president Sean O'Brien in a now-deleted post that criticized him for endorsing an article that took a swipe at the transgender community.
O'Brien made history -- and headlines -- by speaking during the first night of the Republican National Convention on July 15, marking the first time a Teamsters Union President had ever done so.
While that move attracted criticism, O'Brien sought to take advantage of the Republican Party's recent shift towards more populist policies toward the Republican Party.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took a swipe at Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, casting the junior U.S. senator from Ohio as an opportunist with no moral core who owes much of his political career to being financially propped up by rich elites.
Appearing on the July 19 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher asked Buttigieg his opinion of Vance, as well as the support that Vance -- an ardent social conservative who opposes marriage equality and legal protections for LGBTQ individuals -- has received from gay billionaire Peter Thiel.
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