ProgressOhio

Last night, the Human Rights Campaign and Logo sponsored the first presidential forum dedicated to GLBT issues.  HRC Columbus, Equality Ohio, and the OSU GLBT Alumni Society hosted a viewing party at Arena Grand and hundreds came out in support of this historic event.

Six Democratic presidential nominees were in attendance; HRC and Logo extended invitations to GOP presidential nominees and no one accepted.

The speaking order was determined by when candidates RSVP’ed for the forum:

• Senator Barack Obama

• Senator John Edwards

• Rep. Dennis Kucinich

• Senator Mike Gravel

• Governor Bill Richardson

• Senator Hillary Clinton

Kucinich and Gravel were the only candidates who supported same sex marriage. All others were in favor of civil unions with full legal rights as married heterosexual couples.

To see footage from last night’s forum, please click here.

Noticeably absent from the forum were Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. Gravel made a comment about getting invited to the forum at the last minute since he wasn’t “part of the pack” which made me question if the two senators had chosen not to participate or if they were not invited. A Dodd staffer confirmed it was a scheduling conflict and the Senator was in Iowa; a Biden staffer confirmed the Senator was not invited to the forum.

I find it a bit misleading that there was no mention that certain candidates were not invited; viewers were left to believe Senator Biden a) didn’t want to participate or b) choose to attend another event. That’s not very fair.

I question what criteria HRC and Logo used when inviting participants. Fundraising? Polling?