Biden rallies for LGBTQ+ rights as he looks to shake off debate performance

NEW YORK —  President Biden courted LGBTQ+ voters with two New York events, inaugurating a visitor center at the Stonewall National Monument with pop legend Elton John before headlining a Pride Month fundraiser, as he looked to shake off a widely panned debate performance.

“You marked a turning point in civil rights in America,” Biden told the crowd Friday at the Stonewall monument, a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride for decades.

“We remain in a battle for the soul of America,” he added. “I look around at the pride, hope and life that all of you — all of you — bring, and I know it’s a battle that we’re going to win.”

The president then introduced the singer, who said it was “one of the biggest honors of [his] life” to be there. With an expletive, John rejected suggestions that activists would be willing to cede ground in the fight for gay rights.

Biden’s often halting first debate against Republican Donald Trump has some in his party worried that he may not be up to the rigors of the campaign’s final months. The New York Times editorial board declared Friday that he should exit the race and that staying in would be a “reckless gamble.” On Saturday, Biden looked to reassure donors, attending events in New York’s Hamptons and heading later to a planned evening fundraiser in New Jersey.

The president didn’t mention the debate at the Stonewall event Friday but briefly called to the stage New York’s Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who declared, “He’s a fighter.”

Even before the debate, Biden was trying to boost support among Democratic-leaning LGBTQ+ voters after having lost ground with multiple demographic groups, including Black and Latino adults, that helped elect him in 2020, and whose strong backing he needs to win reelection in November.

About 4 in 10 adults who identify as LGBTQ+ approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, according to Gallup data collected in 2024. That’s in line with the share of the general population that approves of the president’s job performance. But about 7 in 10 LGBTQ+ voters supported Biden in the 2020 election, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of voters and nonvoters.

Michael Panzarella of Phoenix, who said he’s an independent voter, won his trip to the event by donating to an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. He called the debate “unfortunate,” saying that “instead of discussing actual issues, we discuss wedge topics and stick with narratives that are false.”

John performed a rollicking version of “Bennie and the Jets,” which he said was about an androgynous band, then offered a defiant rendition of “I’m Still Standing.” He closed with “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” after reflecting aloud on “all the troubles that so many of us have been through.”

Biden’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues has evolved throughout his decades of public service.

As a U.S. senator, he voted in 1996 for the Defense of Marriage Act, which forbade federal recognition of same-sex unions.

As vice president more than a decade later, Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 2012 that he supported gay marriage, upstaging his boss, President Obama, who had not yet stated his position on the issue. Obama said shortly thereafter that he also supported gay marriage.

As president, Biden has acted to protect the rights of gay and gender-nonconforming people, including by reinstating antidiscrimination provisions that Trump had eliminated while in the White House. Biden also ended a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

Two years ago, the Democratic president signed legislation into law to protect gay couples’ unions in case the Supreme Court overturns its landmark 2015 decision that same-sex couples had a right to marry. Earlier this week, Biden pardoned potentially thousands of former U.S. service members who had been convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.

By contrast, Trump has criticized what he calls transgender “insanity,” and has said that if reelected, he will move quickly to reinstate the ban on trans people serving in the military. The Republican former president has also spoken out against allowing transgender minors to receive gender-affirming healthcare or to play sports on teams for the gender they identify as.

The new Stonewall visitor center occupies half of the original Stonewall Inn, which once spanned two neighboring buildings in New York’s Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan. In the late 1960s, it was a gay bar popular with a young LGBTQ+ crowd at a time when dancing with or kissing a same-sex partner could get people arrested.

Police raids were frequent then, and usually generated little if any pushback. But when officers strode into the Stonewall Inn early on June 28, 1969, for the second time that week, customers and a gathering crowd outside confronted them with shouts of “Gay power!” followed by hurled coins, bottles and more.

Protests and clashes with police continued the next several nights and, in the ensuing months and years, led to a new, more militant wave of LGBTQ+ rights activism than had existed before in the U.S.

The site of the rebellion, including both buildings that made up the original Stonewall Inn, became a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and in 2016, Obama made it the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.

Peltz and Superville write for the Associated Press.