Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination have descended on Gay Pride festivities in Des Moines, Iowa, seeming eager to burnish their pro-LGBT bona fides.
On Saturday, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand served drinks at a gay bar and toured the city with a drag queen, former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke participated in a morning 5K Pride run, and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg delivered a fiery speech.
A half-dozen other Democratic candidates spoke at a presidential forum, including U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who said he supported gay rights ‘before it was popular.’
The swarm comes ahead of a key party dinner in Cedar Rapids on Sunday, where 19 of the candidates are expected to speak.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who remains the front runner in Iowa in a new poll released Saturday night, is maintaining a low profile and will not begin campaigning in Iowa until Tuesday.
Democratic presidential candidate and New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand (right) tours the Capital City Pride Fest with drag queen Vana Rosenberg on Saturday in Des Moines
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, center, and his wife Amy talk with a fellow competitor after running the Capital City Pride Fest Fun Run 5K on Saturday
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders greets people during a campaign stop at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa
Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a campaign stop at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday
At his event Saturday, Buttigieg, running to become the first openly gay U.S. president, told activists there was ‘no going back to normal’ in fighting discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
Speaking at a rally on the steps outside the Iowa state capitol, Buttigeig said rights for the community were still under threat from Republican President Donald Trump, and he warned against complacency.
‘Don’t listen to anybody in either party who says we can just go back to what we were doing,’ Buttigieg told a crowd celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on same-sex marriages.
‘We know that the struggle is not over, not even close. At a time like today when you can still be legally fired in so many parts of this country because of who you are or who you love, we have work to do,’ he said.
Buttigeig also spoke at a dinner honoring Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard, who was beaten to death in 1998 for being gay.
Gillibrand (right) tours the Capital City Pride Fest with drag queen Vana Rosenberg (center) and Kyla Paterson on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa
Gillibrand (left) speaks with an attendee at a Pride event at the Blazing Saddle on Friday
Gillibrand shops for a hat during a campaign stop at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday
Meanwhile, at a Meet the Candidates event during Pride Weekend, the 77-year-old Sanders distanced himself from the perception that many old, white men are anti-gay rights.
‘Now, I have to tell you that this issue of gay rights isn’t something new to me. Way back, before it was politically popular back in 1983, as the Mayor of the City of Burlington, Vermont, I supported our first gay pride parade,’ Sanders said in front of the gold-domed Iowa State Capitol building.
‘And that was before it was popular.’
He also talked to the crowd waving rainbow flags and wearing shirts advocating for gay equality about how he used some of his more progressive policies to help the gay community.
‘And we passed landmark housing ordinance that protected people from being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation,’ he added to a cheering crowd that braved the 85 degree heat.
The self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist touted himself as having one of the most gay-friendly records of all the candidates running in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said Saturday he supported gay rights before it was ‘politically popular’
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, center, greets a local resident during the Capital City Pride fest, Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa
While speaking to a crowd of about 300 in Des Moines, Iowa, he said he supported the first gay pride parade in Vermont in 1983. He also touted the state he represents as the first to legalize gay marriage
Sanders made the claim a few hours after Buttigieg appeared as the guest speaker to help celebrate the 10-year anniversary of when Iowa passed equal marriage rights to the gay community.
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has been married to his husband, Chasten, since last June. Instead of participating in the Meet the Candidates forum in the afternoon, he was the guest speaker for the 10 Years of Love celebration.
He spoke to a crowd of about 150 festival goers.
Sanders continued to try to distinguish himself from the other straight male candidates, and paraded opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman. It was later ruled unconstitutional.
‘Today, you’re looking at a candidate the opposed – again, when it was not so popular – the so called Defense of Marriage Act. You remember that?’ He asked the crowd and was met with cheers and boos.
‘We oppose the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell military policy discrimination,’ he continued. ‘And I’m proud to represent the State of Vermont, which was the first state in the country whose legislature legalized gay marriage.’
Buttigieg arrives for a campaign stop at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday in Des Moines
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, right, poses for a selfie during the Capital City Pride Fest Saturday in Des Moines
Buttigieg greets locals residents during the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday
The support of the gay community this weekend from the candidates comes amid controversy after President Donald Trump reportedly rejected requests for U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow Pride Flag at the embassies during Pride month.
U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia requested to fly the rainbow flag on embassy flagpoles during June, NBC News first reported, but were denied permission from the State Department.
June became the month to celebrate LGBTQ Pride in commemoration of the Stonewall riots, which were violent demonstrations that occurred in June 1969 when a police raid took place on members of the gay community on New York City.
Several candidates condemned the Trump administration while speaking in the first caucus state Saturday.
O’Rourke stretches before participating in the Pride Fest Fun Run 5K in Des Moines
O’Rourke nears the finish line in the Pride Fest Fun Run 5K on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa
Jacob Adams, a 32-year-old new Iowan resident who came out to support Sanders and was wearing a shirt with ‘Bernie’ in rainbow print, said he think the progressive candidate would do well in the gay community, even though he is running against a candidate who is openly gay.
‘Absolutely, I mean Bernie Sanders has been fighting for gay rights almost all his life,’ Adams told Dailymail.com after listening to Sanders’s remarks.
‘I look back at his history in Vermont and he was there in the 80s fighting for gay equality, and I don’t think a lot of people know that. Bernie Sanders is not the type of person that brags about that kind of stuff,’ he said.
Just a few weeks prior, Adams moved from San Diego, California to Iowa, and said he was over the moon to have the opportunity to speak directly with Sanders after standing in line for six hours at a California to not even make it in to see him speak.
Immediately after Sanders spoke, longshot candidate and former Maryland Congressman John Delaney took stage, and there was a mass exodus of listeners who returned to the other side of the street where Gay Pride festivities and venders were still set up.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper tries his hand at giant Jenga -type game while campaigning at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday
Democratic presidential candidate and self-help author Marianne Williamson greets people while campaigning at the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday in Des Moines
While Gillibrand spoke to a still depleting crowd that probably didn’t top 100, she had to pause her remarks when a young crowd member collapsed from the heat.
‘Call 911,’ the senator yelled as she jumped off the stage and went to the side of the collapsed girl until medical personnel was able to get to her.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who was not part of the Meet the Candidate roster, walked around the street fair and introduced himself and spoke with participants and booth operators.
At one point, Booker introduced himself to an Iowan woman and her three children. After he walked away, the woman told DailyMail.com she wasn’t sure whose hand she just shook.
When she was told he was a candidate for president, she said to the young kids, ‘Do you know who that was? That man is running for president. I would totally vote for him. He would be better than Trump.’