Chelsea Clinton has been campaigning for her mom, Hillary Clinton, throughout the election. Back when her mother was running against Bernie Sanders, Chelsea struggled somewhat in defining the differences between them on issues like healthcare. Now that her mother has won the Democratic nomination though, and her opponent has changed to Donald Trump, Chelsea can highlight the candidates’ huge differences as well as the differences of the parties they’re running for. While in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention, Clinton spoke out against the Republicans’ stances on LGBT issues, particularly conversion therapy, a discredited form of therapy that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation.
According to the Huffington Post, Clinton spoke at a lunch on Wednesday in Philadelphia that was hosted by the Human Rights Campaign. She attacked the Republican Party’s LGBT platform, adopted at the Republican National Convention, which officially defined marriage as between a man and a woman, among other language taking certain rights away from the LGBT community. She particularly went after their support of conversion therapy and didn’t mince words in doing so:
“I think what I actually found most offensive really again ties to me as a mom,” she said at a lunch hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights advocacy group. “The open embrace of conversion therapy in the Republican Party platform — in other words, child abuse — to me is the clarion call for all of us to do everything we can to elect my mom, but also to elect Democrats up and down the ticket.”
With these strong words, it’s clear how Chelsea feels about conversion therapy and the harm it does to LGBT youth. In addition, the choice is clear between what the Republican Party has gone on record in supporting and what Democrats like Clinton and her mother support. Clinton promised that if attendees of the lunch voted for her mother, then she would actually advance their rights rather rolling them back. She specifically said that Hillary would work to federally ban conversion therapy and reclassify the military records of servicemen who were dishonorably discharged because of their sexual orientation. At the end, referring to her role as a mother again, she said it was important to protect and make progress for future generations.
(via Huffington Post)