After a late night guest appearance at Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s concert in Miami’s Bayfront Park, Secretary Hillary Clinton continued her campaign in Wilton Manors early Sunday afternoon to address the largest LGBTQ community in the state and try to secure the vote in Broward County – a key to winning Florida.
The rally, which began around 2:00 p.m., took place in the Manor Complex. Although security was heightened due to the Pulse Nightclub shooting just four months prior, the location reached its maximum capacity of 2,000 people – gay, straight and everyone inbetween – hours before the rally was even set to begin. By the time Secretary Clinton walked on stage an additional one thousand supporters were gathered outside on the street to tune in to the livestream.
“We don’t want a President who denigrates women, who has plans to break up immigrant families, who perpetrated the lie that Obama was not born in America and who would elect Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn marriage equality,” Clinton said to a room full of cheering supporters waving pride flags and ‘Love is Love’ signs in the air.
In her 20-minute speech she emphasized how she would urge Congress to pass the Equality Act – a bill intended to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex.
Later on, Clinton highlighted recent LGBTQ and human rights’ progress that would be put at stake under a Trump presidency. Not only did Trump hint at overturning marriage equality, but he also vowed to repeal Obama’s executive action that prevents business from discriminating against race, gender or sexual identity.
A stark contrast, Clinton promised to encourage federal laws be passed that will permanently prevent discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. Other points hit on by the campaign included raising the national minimum wage, making America a clean energy superpower, ending youth homelessness and ensuring equal pay for women.
Further exposing Trump’s egocentrist nature, Clinton singled out the 1996 Washington Post report of him posing as a donor at a New York charity event hosted by the Association to Benefit Children. Without having donated a single cent toward the cause or receiving a formal invitation, Trump appeared at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a nursery school for children with HIV and AIDS. After having his picture taken near the podium and with the children at the event, Trump left without any explanation or donation.
“Donald likes to construct an image that he is generous, but it’s a façade,” Clinton said.
With nine days left until the general election, Clinton is currently tied with Trump for Florida, according realclearpolitics.com. Her closing remarks elaborated on the importance of early voting, as more than 20 million people across the nation have already cast in their ballots, and addressed an issue currently at the center of the LGBTQ community – ending widely discredited conversion therapy.
“It is no longer the 1950s,” Clinton said. “We need to give everybody the resources to do what they need to do in life: care for one another.”
