Biden looks to the LGBTQI community for support
US President Joe Biden has courted LGBTQI voters in New York and shared some of the star power of pop legend Elton John, as he looked to shake off a widely panned debate performance.
"You marked a turning point in civil rights in America," Biden told the crowd while inaugurating a new visitor centre at the Stonewall National Monument, a symbol of LGBTQI pride for decades.
He added, that "we remain in a battle for the soul of America" but "I look around at the pride, hope and life that all of you, all of you, bring, and I know it's a battle that we're going to win."
The president then introduced John who said it was "one of the biggest honours of my life to be here today" and offered an expletive against suggestions that activists would be willing to cede ground in the fight for gay rights.
Biden's often halting first debate against Republican Donald Trump has some in his party worried about whether he's up for the rigours of the campaign's final months.
Even before the debate, Biden was trying to boost support within the Democratic-leaning gay community after losing ground with Black and Latino adults and other demographic groups that helped elect him in 2020 and whose strong backing he needs to win re-election in November.
About 4 in 10 LGBTQI identifying adults approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, according to Gallup data collected in 2024. That's in line with the share of the general population that approves of the president's job performance. About 7 in 10 LGBTQ+ voters supported Biden in the 2020 election, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of voters and nonvoters.
Biden's stance on LGBTQI issues has evolved throughout his decades of public service.
As a US senator, he voted in 1996 for the Defence of Marriage Act, which forbade federal recognition of same-sex unions.
Then, more than a decade later, Biden as vice president declared in 2012 on "Meet the Press" that he supported gay marriage, upstaging his boss, President Barack Obama, who had not yet stated his position on the issue. Obama said he supported gay marriage shortly thereafter.
As president, Biden has acted to protect the rights of gay and transgender people, such as reinstating anti-discrimination provisions eliminated by then-President Trump. Biden also ended a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
Earlier this week, Biden pardoned former US service members who had been convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.
By contrast, Trump has criticised what he calls transgender "insanity" and has said he would move quickly to reinstate the ban on their service in the military if re-elected. He also has condemned gender-affirming care for transgender minors along with their ability to play on sports teams.
The new Stonewall visitor centre occupies half of the original Stonewall Inn, which once spanned two neighbouring buildings in New York's Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. In the late 1960s, it was a gay bar where a young LGBTQI crowd went to dance at a time when dancing with or kissing a same-sex partner could get people arrested.
Police raids were frequent but when officers strode into the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, for the second time that week, customers and a gathering crowd outside confronted them with shouts of "gay power!" followed by hurled coins, bottles and more.
Protests and clashes with police continued the next several nights and, in the ensuing months and years, led to a new, more militant wave of LGTBQI rights activism.
