Is America ready to elect a gay candidate for President?

Sure. Why not? As answered.

Sure. But my vote will not hinge on his sexual orientation.

They elected an orange orangutan.

The traditional order is black man, woman, gay, atheist. We still haven’t had a female president, so perhaps one will have to come before there is an openly gay president.

I like to think that a candidate being gay would not prevent Americans from voting for them. As a gay man myself, of course I would like to see a gay man in the highest office in the land, but I would not vote for one based solely on their sexuality. Identity shouldn’t be a deciding factor in electing a president, but I’m sure it is for many voters.

You won’t know that until it happens.

Theoretically, Drumpf could keel over dead tomorrow, and then Mike “balls-deep-in-the-closet” Pence would be president.

Probably not, but the odds are very good that we’ve had one or two in the past.

Is America ready to elect an intelligent, educated, polyglot, veteran, who is somewhat moderate?
Unfortunately, whether or not he is gay will make a difference, even though it’s not anybody’s business but his own.

I truly don’t know. Some of my gay friends doubt that we are.

In my opinion, no. My personal opinion is that it doesn’t matter what the gender of the individual is but as for the country being willing to elect someone who is gay, I think there are still many people that would be leery of it.

I think so. I like Mayor Pete, but I don’t think he will make it through the primary, because I think a lot of people do worry the country isn’t ready, or that parts of the world aren’t ready. He’s very young, maybe his time will be 5 or 9 years from now.

I also think the country was ready for a black persons and a woman, even before Obama and Hillary. Very few women, black people, and gay people have tried to run for President. You can’t elect them if they don’t run.

How about a black gay woman? You can strike off the list all at once.

Back when the decision was between Obama and Hillary, I was in the stands at a volleyball game. An elderly couple was sitting in front of me and started talking about the election. He said “well we’re down to a woman and a n word. I’ll vote for a “N” before I vote for a woman.” Wow. We really haven’t come very far have we?

Too late to edit: I want to add that the biggest thing I think that stands in the way of a gay president getting elected is probably a portion of the black vote, maybe parts of the Hispanic vote too. Ironic, considering they are minorities themselves. I say they might be the obstacle, because they are a significant portion of the religious vote in the Democratic Party. Especially, since black people are more likely to be Baptist or Methodist or the religions that I tend to call evangelical. The Catholics tend to be more accepting of gay rights, etc. Not all people in any of the groups act the same though. I’m talking generalities.

Wanda Sykes for president .

We have already elected a black person as president. A few gay people were elected to office last year. There is rather little made of the fact that Sanders is Jewish, and only Biden is ahead of him in the Democratic polling. Trump did not get a majority of the vote, even though Clinton has a fairly negative rating (and it is not because of her gender). If we are not ready yet to elect a gay person as president, we soon will be.

His being gay would NOT affect my decision as to whether or not I’d vote for him. The times I’ve heard him speak, he sounds intelligent; however, I have not studied him enough to know whether or not I agree with his politics!!! I usually save my research for after the parties decide who their nominee will be. Anybody can run for office, but it’s up to the individual parties who will actually be the nominee; so, I see NO reason to put the cart before the horse. Plus I don’t vote for a particular party & we might get lucky & trump won’t be up for reelection. It’s way too soon to be worrying about for whom I will be voting. All I know for sure at this point is who will NOT be receiving my vote!!!

The question is not whether we personally would vote for a gay candidate but would “America”. Since vast swathes of America don’t even seem willing to give women agency over their own bodies, I highly doubt we are ready for a gay President much as I personally would welcome it and vote for them if they were chosen.

The backlash against personal freedom and civil rights in this country at this time is truly frightening.

@janbb The parts of America that don’t want to give women rights over their own bodies usually don’t vote for the democrat anyway, so I don’t see that as a problem.

There is some crossover, some pro-life people do vote Democrat, but most are Republicans. The highly unionized states it’s more blurry. Some of the union workers, or pro-union people, who are Catholic and pro life, still vote Democrat, although, they might now be part of the swing vote in states like OH, PA, and MI.

I think the real question is will independents and Democrats vote for a gay presidential candidate.

@LadyMarissa Why don’t you want influence over who becomes the candidate? The primary is the most important vote in my opinion. It puts forth the person for the party. In the end most Democrats are going to vote for the democrat, and most republicans are going to vote for the republican, so the two people are very important.

Years ago, when JFK was running for president, a college student asked him if a Catholic could be president.
Is America ready for a gay candidate? Only time will tell. And his platform.

@chyna We have come pretty far, but older people tend to get stuck in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

We were watching “American Idol” with Rick’s then 92 year old father. Jordan Sparks was onstage, singing. Dad said, “Wow. She’s really good, but her color will be against her.” (She won the show, BTW.) I couldn’t tell if he was serious or just yanking my chain. He didn’t sound racist. He was just stating a fact.

I’ll vote for a gay candidate for president if he’s conservative.

@Dutchess_III That reminded me of this Asian American lady in her 40s then, who was unhappy about Obama becoming President she said the White House turned into the Black House.

Just this week a male immigrant from Korea who is a US citizen told me he thinks being gay is a sin. He’s mid-40s.

Actually I think yes, we are ready.

I’m not saying everyone would be thrilled, there are always throwbacks, but a conservative gay person, could win if it was played right.

It can depend on the culture too @mazingerz88. I dated a black guy who was born and raised in Selma, Alabama. He once was mocking the way Asians talk, then he said something like, “And they aren’t even real Americans!”
I said, “Who’s a real American?”
Without hesitation he said, “White people.”
He was in his mid 30’s at that time.

@mazingerz88 I had a lot of Korean friends growing up, and many of their immigrant parents were fairly racist, but most of the children weren’t. They were all mostly Christian also, and the community was fairly tightknit, so there was peer pressure. If I remember correctly Koreans didn’t like white people either to “mix” with them. I remember this from when our military was there, although, maybe that partly was some of these babies were out of wedlock also, I don’t know. I knew someone in high school who was Korean who wasn’t allowed to watch the Cosby Show, because it was a black show. I don’t want to characterize all Korean immigrants this way, two of my boyfriend’s brothers married Korean girls, this was back in the late 80’s and they are Hispanic, and that is just my little corner of my circles.

@JLeslie That’s because some Asians have prejudices, too. My Vietnamese friends told me that the lighter the skin, the higher the class. Apparently most of them look down on the Thai and Loation people due to their dark skin color.

I was doing a science lab in 5th grade once. Part of it called for using different colors of post it notes. Among the colors of post it note was a dark yellow and a light yellow.
One of the girls, who is black, said, “So we use the dark skinnded for this and the light skinnded for that?”
I had to laugh a little, and said, “Yes.”

I don’t really think so, no. I feel like we desperately need someone much closer to the center, anyone too far in either “direction” is just going to further agitate the growing frustrations of the other side. I do think the majority of Americans would be comfortable with a gay president if the current political climate weren’t such a fucking nightmare.

@KNOWITALL Pretty much around the world you can find this, but there are exceptions. The Caribbean Islands tend to be better about everyone mixing together. In some Latin American countries the whiter people (Europeans) tend to be in the higher classes, but just like America it’s not across the board as a strict rule in the countries, but is that way from former circumstances and some prejudices. Same with language, higher classes speak more articulate Spanish, less slang, just like English in America. Higher classes are educated and literate over generations, being literate helps a lot with pronouncing a language as written. Asians tend to not be very welcoming to new immigrants, and even when they are the immigrant, they don’t like the idea of mixing. In Asian countries the darker the skin the more associated with working in the fields, and the whiter skin more white collar, that is true in most countries until recently when a suntan started signify leisure time and vacations.

Sometimes parents just want an easier road for their children. This is what some people miss, it is not always racism, but you could call it a prejudice. Like my dad, not a racist person at all, but he used to say if the person is also Jewish, not religious (similar to me) and also has other things in common with me, that is more likely to at least take that stuff off the table in regards to disagreements that can happen concerning marriage and children. Of course in marriage people change so there is no guarantee.

My husband was Catholic and Mexican, but same education level, and we had a ton in common, despite being from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, so because I gave him a chance we were able to find that out while dating. The fear is that young people especially “fall in love” and then even when there are red flags, they stick in the relationship, so some people (parents) worry that interdating leads to intermarriage, and not always everything is thought through. Then there are people who worry intermarriage means the culture or religion will eventually disappear, that is what some Jewish people worry about regarding the religion. Some Jews take it even further wanting their children to marry Jews from the same part of the world (Ashkenazi vs Sephardic) but that is not as common. Anyway, sometimes it is a racist or prejudice reason, and sometimes it is more about cultural concerns, having things in common, like psychographic things, and young people not understanding consequences yet.

I guess. as I write this, that is all prejudice actually, making assumptions about another. I don’t think we can let people off the hook there.

In America we are loathe to talk about people marrying into other classes, we usually talk in terms of race and religions, except maybe the very high classes do talk about it. It’s a taboo I think, because our country is a meritocracy, and we left the world of royalty and the underclass, looking down on that system, so most people hate to talk about the classes that do exist here, and how they really function, and the psychographic differences within the classes. Sociologist study it, data is used by corporations and the government, but it is not for mixed company, just like politics and religion.

I doubt most people even know or care that he’s gay.

But he’s the kind of candidate that says he supports progressive causes, but when asked for specifics, he hedges on mostly everything. That’s why I’m not supporting him.

@rockfan it’s all over social media. Graham is saying he needs to “repent.”

How about we just elect an actual leader.

Insane fundamentalists really aren’t really a good measure on how average voters feel.

@rockfàn I think you are really underestimating how much homophobia many «ordinary »
Americans have.