The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) recently held a fundraiser that netted over $300,000 and enlisted more than 1,500 new volunteers for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
The event was filled with speakers from various areas, including LGBTQ+ activists, elected officials, HRC staff and more. They spoke to an audience of over 20,000 listeners and represented several organizations including HRC, the National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund, and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
“We are overwhelmed, humbled and inspired by the outpouring of support that we are seeing for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Harris campaign National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director Sam Alleman said. “I just can’t put it into words this feeling, but I do think it’s important, despite the energy and the excitement that we are feeling right now, to ground us in [the reality] that the general frame of this election and what we’re doing here hasn’t really changed.”
Some of the out national elected officials took to the stage to describe the importance of Harris’s campaign as it relates to LGBTQ+ rights. One of those officials was U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), the first Black lesbian U.S. senator. She mentioned how she hopes with the election of Harris, more doors will be opened to women who look like both her and Harris.
“I am only the third Black [person] to ever serve in the United States Senate,” said Butler. “I am only the 12th Black person to ever serve in the institution’s 248 year history,” Butler said in her remarks. “What we have the opportunity to do is move beyond counting just a handful of representatives in the United States Senate and in the House of Representatives — we have the opportunity to kick the door wide open, to not just crack the glass ceiling, but to blow it out.”
HRC President Kelley Robinson also addressed attendees, reminding them what is at stake this election.
“We are choosing between two different futures for our country, two different futures for our kids, at a moment where we’ve got to make sure, make it clear, and make it explicit,” Robinson said. “We’re not just going to beat Donald Trump. We’re going to stomp out Trumpism and all the MAGA-ism wherever it lives and where it lies, because in this moment, we’re going to ensure that love triumphs over hate, that hope triumphs over fear…that joy is available to every single one of us.”