WASHINGTON _ An LGBTQ-focused town hall featuring 2020 Democratic presidential candidates will be held in downtown Los Angeles next month, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced Thursday.
The "Power of Our Pride" event will take place Oct. 10, the day before National Coming Out Day, at the Novo and will be aired on CNN. The activist group says the town hall marks a historic first. It will be the first LGBTQ-focused presidential event broadcast on a major news network.
As of Thursday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren had confirmed their participation in the event.
"We are eager to hear from this field of Democratic presidential candidates about how they plan to win full federal equality, defend the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people, and protect the most vulnerable among us _ both here in the United States and around the globe _ from stigma, institutional inequality, discrimination, and violence," said the organization's president, Alphonso David, in a statement.
David added that the town hall came at a critical time facing the LGBTQ community, citing discrimination, a rise in hate crimes and the continued practice of "conversion therapy."
"Although the federal government should be protecting all residents, the Trump-Pence Administration is directly attacking our community by banning transgender troops from serving our country openly, undermining health care services for people living with HIV, and seeking to erase LGBTQ people from protections under law," David said.
To participate in the event, candidates are required to meet the Democratic National Committee's fall debate requirements of having at least 2% support in four DNC-approved polls and 130,000 unique donors with a minimum of 400 individual donors across 20 states by Sept. 25.
