The presidential candidates didn't talk about anything explicitly gay-related during their final debate Oct. 15 in New York, but there was some important information for LGBT people hidden between the lines of discussions about taking a 'hatchet' to the federal budget and whether to exclude a U.S. Supreme Court nominee over his or her position on abortion.
On the budget, the responses have implications for important AIDS funding, such as the Ryan White CARE Act.
'Sen. [ John ] McCain said he'd take a hatchet to the budget,' said U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., vice chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, during an Obama campaign telephone conference with LGBT media Oct. 16. The Ryan White CARE Act, she said, is an example of a program that is 'already underfunded.'
'We need to increase funding' for Ryan White said DeGette. 'With those across-the-board cuts, the harm would be deeply felt.'
The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, first enacted in 1990, provides federal funding for treatment. Funding for the 2008 fiscal year was $2.1 billion.
McCain's remark came in response to a question from CBS News moderator Bob Schieffer, pressing both candidates to say what they would cut in order to reduce the federal deficit.
'What would I cut?' said McCain. 'I would have, first of all, across-the-board spending freeze, OK? Some people say that's a hatchet. That's a hatchet, and then I would get out a scalpel … because we have presided over the largest increase … in government since the Great Society. Government spending has gone completely out of control: $10 trillion dollar debt we're giving to our kids, a half a trillion dollars we owe China. I know how to save billions of dollars in defense spending. I know how to eliminate programs.'
Democrat Sen. Barack Obama said he would go through the federal budget 'line by line, page by page' to eliminate programs that 'don't work.'
'Programs that we need,' he said, 'we should make them work better.
Schieffer also asked the candidates: 'Could either of you ever nominate someone to the Supreme Court who disagrees with you on this issue?'
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court decision that ruled that laws prohibiting abortion violate the constitutional right to privacy. The ruling was important for gay legal challenges in later years, including the landmark 2003 decision that struck down laws prohibiting sodomy.
McCain went first and reiterated his disagreement with the Roe decision but said he would 'never' use it as a litmus test for deciding who to nominate to the high court. Obama reiterated his support for Roe and said he would expect his nominee to respect the constitutional right to privacy.
Schieffer asked McCain to clarify whether he wanted Roe v. Wade to be overturned.
He did not respond directly to that question but said instead, 'I thought it was a bad decision.'
'I think there were a lot of decisions that were bad,' continued McCain, without explaining. 'I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist. And I believe strongly that we should have nominees to the United States Supreme Court based on their qualifications rather than any litmus test.' He then mentioned his leadership in the bipartisan 'Gang of 14' senators who collaborated to avert a filibuster or Senate shutdown over Supreme Court nominees.
'You were offered a chance to join' that group, said McCain to Obama. 'You chose not to because you were afraid of the appointment of, quote, 'conservative judges.''
McCain noted that he voted for two Clinton appointees—Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ' [ n ] ot because I agreed with their ideology, but because I thought they were qualified and that elections have consequences when presidents are nominated.' He added that he would choose justices who 'have a history of strict adherence to the Constitution, and not legislating from the bench.'
The latter remark has, in recent years, been seen generally as a code phrase for justices who oppose same-sex marriages.
Obama said he wouldn't use a 'strict litmus test' either but that the most important criterion for him would be a judge's 'capacity to provide fairness and justice to the American people.'
'I would not provide a litmus test, but I am somebody who believes that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided,' said Obama. 'I think that abortion is a very difficult issue and it is a moral issue and one that I think good people on both sides can disagree on. But what ultimately I believe is that women in consultation with their families, their doctors, their religious advisers, are in the best position to make this decision. And I think that the Constitution has a right to privacy in it that shouldn't be subject to state referendum, any more than our First Amendment rights are subject to state referendum, any more than many of the other rights that we have should be subject to popular vote.'
The latter statement from Obama, while not referring to any gay-related issues, is seen as having implications for anti-gay ballot initiatives around the country that have sought to ban gays from marriage or—as in the 1990s—exclude them from protection under civil-rights laws.
©2008 Keen News Service
