Thursday, August 30, 2018

The Forgotten “B”

We don’t usually hear much about the “B” in “LGBT” but there is now a candidate who came out as Bi.
Kyrsten Sinema wins Arizona primary, major first as bisexual candidate
The Washington Blade
By Chris Johnson
August 28, 2018

Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) achieved a significant victory on Tuesday in the Arizona primary when she became the first openly bisexual person to win a major party nomination to run for a U.S. Senate seat.

The Associated Press declared Sinema, a three-term member of Congress, the winner at 9:21 local time after polls closed in Arizona at 7 pm. Sinema was in a contest against Muslim progressive activist Deedra Abboud for the Democratic nomination to run for the open U.S. Senate seat in Arizona.

With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Sinema won 80.5 percent of the vote compared to the 19.5 percent won by Abboud, according to results from the New York Times.
[…]
As the only openly bisexual member of Congress and co-chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus, Sinema has taken the lead on LGBT issues during her time in Congress. Among other things, Sinema was a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, comprehensive legislation that would prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in all areas of federal civil rights law and legislation against Trump’s attempted ban on transgender service members.
We don’t usually hear from the silent “B” and I wonder how her anti-LGBT will handle Sinema being Bi will she run on an anti-LGBT platform?

There are other LGBT candidates running for office besides Christine Hallquist bid for Vermont governor.
Sinema wasn’t the only LGBT candidate in a primary race on Tuesday night. Other LGBT candidates were in the fray in Arizona and Florida and had different results:

* In Florida’s 18th congressional district, lesbian candidate and former State Department official Lauren Baer won the Democratic nomination over attorney Pam Keith by a 60-40 margin. Baer will face off against incumbent Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) in the general election.
* Also in Florida, Donna Shalala, a former official with the Department of Health & Human Services during the Clinton, narrowly defeated openly gay State Rep. David Richardson for the Democratic nomination to run in Florida’s 27th congressional district. Shalala will run against Maria Elvira Salazar in race to succeed retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) in Congress.
* In Arizona, gay candidate and former Arizona State Rep. Matt Heinz came up short in a bid to claim the Democratic nomination to run in Arizona’s second congressional district against former U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick.
Notice anyone missing from the list?

Christine Hallquist… but what do you expect from a “Gay” magazine where LGBT really means just "Gay."

1 comment:

  1. Oregon's Governor, Kate Brown, is running for re-election. Kate is openly bi-sexual and was the first openly bi-sexual person to be elected to a Governor's seat.

    ReplyDelete