Tulsi Gabbard in CNN Kfile
On Civil Rights:
My time in the military changed my anti-gay views
Gabbard sought to explain her shift from advocating anti-gay policies in the early 2000s, saying her time in the military caused her to "go through some soul-searching.""I was raised in a very socially conservative home. My father is Catholic, he was
a leading voice against gay marriage in Hawaii at that time. Again, I was very young, but these are the values and beliefs that I grew up around," she said.
Gabbard said her views shifted when she deployed to the
Middle East, "where I saw firsthand the negative impact of a government attempting to act as a moral arbiter for their people, dictating in the most personal ways how they must live their lives."
"Race or religion or orientation, these were things that didn't matter, because we were focused on our mission of serving," she said.
Source: CNN KFile on 2019 SXSW conference in Austin
Mar 11, 2019
On Civil Rights:
I never personally supported gay conversion therapy
CNN's KFile previously reported that Gabbard's father led an anti-gay organization that advocated for conversion therapy. She touted her involvement in the group during a state legislative run. But now, Gabbard said she "personally never supported any
kind of conversion therapy. I never advocated for conversion therapy. And frankly, I didn't even know what conversion therapy was until the last few years."
Source: CNN KFile on 2019 SXSW conference in Austin
Mar 11, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Early 2000s: supported father's antigay rights group
Gabbard in the early 2000s touted working for her father's anti-gay organization, which mobilized to pass a measure against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and promoted controversial conversion therapy. During her run for state legislature in 2002,
Gabbard told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, "Working with my father, Mike Gabbard, and others to pass a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage, I learned that real leaders are willing to make personal sacrifices for the common good.
I will bring that attitude of public service to the legislature." Gabbard's father ran The Alliance for Traditional Marriage, a political action committee aimed at opposing pro-gay lawmakers and legislation that organized and spent more than
$100,000 to pass an amendment in 1998 that gave the Hawaii state legislature power to "reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples." The amendment to the state's constitution passed.
Source: CNN KFile, "Conversion Therapy," on 2020 Democratic primary
Jan 17, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Actively supports equal rights on LGBTQ+ issues
[In response to her work in the early 2000s touted for her father's anti-gay organization, which mobilized to pass a measure against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and promoted controversial conversion therapy]: "Over the past six years in Congress,
I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to help work toward passing legislation that ensures equal rights and protections on
LGBTQ+ issues, such as the Equality Act, the repeal of DOMA, Restore Honor to Service members Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Equality for All Resolution. Much work remains to ensure equality and civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and if elected President, I will continue to fight for equal rights for all."
Source: CNN KFile, "Conversion Therapy," on 2020 Democratic primary
Jan 17, 2019
On Homeland Security:
End this new cold war and nuclear arms race
Gabbard was asked Sunday to name the biggest policy mistake the United States had ever made. She pointed to the march toward what she warned could be "nuclear catastrophe."She pointed to a cell phone alert -- which turned out to be a false alarm --
last year warning people in Hawaii to take shelter because a missile was incoming. She described residents of the state facing agonizing decisions about how to seek shelter and who to spend what they feared could be their last minutes with.
"This alert turned out to be false, but the reason we reacted the way we did is that the threat is real," Gabbard said. "Our leaders have failed us and brought us to this point. It doesn't have to be this way. We have to correct our course. We have
to end this new cold war and nuclear arms race that is currently being waged that threatens our very future and that costs us trillions of our taxpayer dollars--dollars that need to be spent and invested to serve the needs of our people here at home."
Source: CNN KFile on 2019 SXSW conference in Austin
Mar 11, 2019
On War & Peace:
U.S. government lied to American people to launch Iraq War
Gabbard would not say whether she believes Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal -- the latest in a string of skeptical comments about whether Assad was, as the United Nations concluded, behind an April 2017 chemical weapons
attack. "I think that the evidence needs to be gathered and, as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such,"
Gabbard said.Gabbard also would not say whether she would trust the American intelligence community as president. "We have, in our recent past,
a situation where our own government told lies to the American people, and to the United Nations for that matter, to launch a war," she said.
Source: CNN KFile on 2019 SXSW conference in Austin
Mar 11, 2019
Page last updated: Oct 31, 2024