I want to point this out for a number of reasons. First, it’s important to all people whom the issue affects, not just the individuals, but their family members, loved ones, friends and associates. It’s not just about the transgendered, or the LGBT community as a whole, but the world around them as well. Anyone who cares about anyone in this community is affected by these issues. That’s a whole lot of people.

Second, it’s important to identify the real differences between Republicans and Democrats, who as Joe Biden shows, are polar opposites on identity issues. You can argue their relative sameness on economic issues — lord knows I’ve been doing that — but on identity issues it’s trogs and eloi without much doubt.

And third, I think Biden is right. This is a world-historical turning point, just as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (broadly considered) was a world-historical turning point. It did not solve all race problems, but it made race a bridge too far. And 50 years later, race is still a bridge too far — it’s race that’s peeling corporate support from ALEC (click to see why). Good to see this corner turned for members of the LGBT community, and about time too.

That’s said, here’s Biden via the Huffington Post (thanks to the email correspondent who alerted me; my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

Vice President Joe Biden said transgender discrimination is “the civil rights issue of our time” during a visit to a Florida field office on Tuesday, according to pool reports. Biden was meeting with volunteers at an Obama for America office in Sarasota, Fla., when he singled out one woman “who he thought had beautiful eyes,” reads the pool report. The woman said something to Biden that was inaudible to the pool reporter, but Biden responded to her by saying it was the “civil rights issue of our time.” The woman, Linda Carragher Bourne of Sarasota, later said her daughter was Miss Trans New England and that she had asked Biden if he would help them. “A lot of my friends are being killed, and they don’t have the civil rights yet. These guys are gonna make it happen,” Bourne told the reporter.

There’s more in the article, including other statements of LGBT support from Biden. Note the comment by Obama that Biden “got out a little bit over his skis” with his public remarks last May, just shortly ahead of Obama’s own “evolution.” Was Biden pushing the president at the time? Analysis of that dynamic was mixed when it occurred, but in retrospect — and in the context of other comments by the vice-president — this may well have been his intention.

Either way, good call on the historical importance, and a welcome and needed statement of support.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius