The Human Rights Campaign, which endorsed Mark Kirk for Congress in 2006 and 2008, has less love for his successor, Bob Dold.
The HRC endorsed Dold’s Democratic opponent, Dan Seals, in 2010. This year, it’s doing the same, endorsing Brad Schneider in the 10th Congressional District.
The HRC, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization, is hardly non-partisan. In 2010, the group endorsed only two House Republicans. (One was Illinois’s Judy Biggert.) Its support was useful to Kirk, because it burnished the bipartisan image that helped him survive in his social liberal North Shore district, then win election to the U.S. Senate. (Although the HRC endorsed Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in that race.)
This election, the HRC objects to Dold because of his opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009, which protects homosexuals and transsexuals from employment discrimination. (Kirk co-sponsored the bill.) Dold also supports the Defense of Marriage Act and told WLS radio, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
Schneider is opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriage.
“Brad’s passion and commitment to LGBT equality, along with his dedication to Illinois families, make him the strongest candidate for Congress,” HRC National Field Director Marty Rouse said of Schneider. “It’s time that families in the new 10th District are represented by someone who shares their values of fairness and equality.”
Buy this book! Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland's book, Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President , is available Amazon. Young Mr. Obama includes reporting on President Obama's earliest days in the Windy City, covering how a presumptuous young man transformed himself into presidential material. Buy it now!
