WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) hailed Hillary Clinton's historic win, following news of her victory in the New Jersey primary and reports that she has secured enough delegates to become the first woman nominated for president by a major party.
"Hillary Clinton made history tonight in more ways than one," said HRC President Chad Griffin. "As the first woman to secure the nomination of a major political party, she has shattered barriers that have persisted since this country's founding. She has also laid out the most ambitious agenda for LGBTQ equality that our nation has ever seen from a presidential candidate. With Donald Trump threatening to roll back all the progress our community has made under President Obama, the stakes for millions of LGBTQ Americans couldn't be higher in this election — and our choice on November 8 couldn't be clearer."
The Human Rights Campaign endorsed Hillary Clinton in January at an event in Des Moines, deployed staff to organize in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and following those states, mobilized members and supporters across the country.
Secretary Clinton has made LGBTQ equality a pillar of her campaign and unveiled the most robust and ambitious LGBTQ plan any candidate for president has ever laid out. She has vowed to fight for the Equality Act — a bill that would finally offer explicit, clear, and permanent non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people at the federal level — and her detailed LGBTQ policy platform specifically calls for dropping the ban on open transgender military service, outlawing dangerous "conversion therapy" for minors, ending the epidemic of transgender violence, and supporting HIV prevention and affordable treatment, among other proposals that would advance equality and support the LGBTQ community.
Clinton's agenda and record of achievement starkly contrasts against Donald Trump, who has vowed to roll back and block LGBTQ equality at every turn. Trump has vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices who would roll back nationwide marriage equality, has said he would sign a bill that would bring Kim Davis-style discrimination to all 50 states, and sided with Pat McCrory in his vile maneuver to write anti-LGBTQ discrimination into state law. Trump has also vowed to repeal President Obama's executive orders. Beyond Trump's hateful opposition to LGBTQ equality, he has attacked, belittled and maligned anyone and everyone he considers different. The LGBTQ community is as diverse as our nation, and includes women, immigrants, Muslims, people of color, people living with disabilities, asylum seekers and others Trump has attacked for political gain.|
With 1.5 million members and supporters nationwide, HRC is planning an unprecedented organizational effort to register and mobilize the nation's pro-equality majority, and elect pro-LGBTQ candidates up and down the ballot. In 2016, HRC expects that the pro-equality vote will be larger, stronger, and more energized than at any point in history.
Exit polls show that in 2012 at least six million LGB Americans voted in an election decided by less than five million votes. Today, in key states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, the population of LGBTQ adults is greater than the average margin of victory in the last three presidential elections.
Polling done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for HRC shows that a 55 percent majority of voters are less likely to support a candidate for president who opposes allowing same-sex couples to marry. This majority includes Independents, married women and white millennials — all groups which voted Republican in the 2014 midterm elections.
