Don Lemon CNN Gets Award{ Being Out /Open} HHS Secretary Surmises Obama’s Gay Accomplishment

 CHARLOTTE, N.C. - At a Charlotte, N.C., gathering that often sounded like an Obama campaign rally, top Cabinet member Kathleen Sebelius told nearly 1,400 people at a gay-rights fundraiser Saturday night that it is "hugely important" to not only re-elect her boss in November but also to defeat the proposed North Carolina constitutional amendment further limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

Democrat Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said a host of Obama-initiated advances for the gay community - including repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" in the military - could be "wiped out in a heartbeat" if the Republican presidential nominee wins this year.

She suggested in her 14-minute speech at the Charlotte Convention Center that gays, lesbians and other Obama backers in this key swing state use the May 8 vote on the amendment as a sort of practice run for the effort needed in November to keep North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes in President Barack Obama’s column.

"I know there’s an important election in early May in North Carolina," Sebelius told the North Carolina gala of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay and lesbian civil rights group. "And I think it’s a great template for what needs to be done to organize people and turn out people for November. North Carolina is hugely important in this next (presidential) election."

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx personally welcomed those at the gala - a sign that things have changed since 2005, when then-Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican, refused to issue a welcoming letter for the gala in Charlotte that year.

During his remarks Saturday, Foxx also spoke out against the proposed constitutional amendment reaffirming North Carolina’s ban - already in state law - of same-sex marriage.

Saying he’d heard from gay and lesbian city workers and police officers who could not take bereavement time or care for their partners, Foxx told the crowd that "when I go into the ballot box in May ... I’m going to be voting against Amendment 1."

He said he was concerned that passage of the amendment would scare away from Charlotte - site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention - those businesses that want to attract talented gay and lesbian employees.

"They ... don’t want a ’Not Wanted’ sign hung over their front (door)," Foxx said.

Representatives from three of the night’s corporate sponsors - Wells Fargo, Time Warner Cable and Bank of America - boasted to the crowd that gays and lesbians feel welcome working for their companies. Top Wells Fargo official Laura Schulte even announced that her company had just lit up the city’s new Duke Energy tower in the rainbow colors of the gay and lesbian community.

At the request of the Human Rights Campaign, the convention center reserved at least two bathrooms in the lobby outside the gala for "gender-neutral restrooms."

In her remarks, Sebelius cataloged the advances the Obama administration has made on issues important to homosexuals. Under the health care reform law administered by her department, for example, it will be illegal for insurers to discriminate against anyone because of sexual orientation or gender identity. People overseas who have HIV/AIDS are no longer barred from traveling to America, she said, and the Obama administration has waged a campaign against bullying in schools.

No longer, Sebelius said, should people be denied the right to pursue their dreams "because of who they love."

Also at the gala, CNN anchor Don Lemon was given the group’s Visibility Award, which honors gays and lesbians who "are living open and honest lives."

Visit The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) at www.charlotteobserver.com  

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