LGBTQ celebrities, lawmakers come out in support of Kamala Harris

Matt Bomer, Billy Eichner, Wilson Cruz and dozens of state legislators signed a letter detailing Kamala Harris' efforts to protect LGBTQ rights.

More than 1,100 LGBTQ celebrities, lawmakers and leaders signed a letter released Wednesday by national LGBTQ rights groups endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run.

The letter includes signatures from actors Matt Bomer, George Takei, Billy Eichner, and Sophia Bush and her partner, Ashlyn Harris, a former U.S. Women’s National Team soccer player. Out elected officials, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Reps. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Becca Balint, D-Vt., also signed, alongside notable figures such as Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, and Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998. 

Harris has a two-decade track record of supporting gay rights, which is part of the reason LGBTQ advocacy groups, lawmakers and celebrities have been vocal in backing the presidential hopeful. Some LGBTQ people, however, have taken issue with her record on trans rights and criminal justice issues.

During her time as a district attorney in San Francisco, Harris helped make California the first state in the country to ban the so-called gay/trans panic defense, which has allowed those accused of homicide to receive lesser sentences by saying they panicked after having found out a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity, the letter says. 

She was also an early supporter of marriage equality. She officiated some of the nation’s first same-sex marriages in 2004. Then, in 2008, when she was California’s attorney general, she refused to defend Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. In 2013, after a court allowed an injunction against Proposition 8 to stand, Harris officiated the first same-sex wedding in the state.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lgbtq-celebrities-lawmakers-kamala-harris-rcna163542

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