Obama uses word 'gay' most often among US presidents
President Barack Obama has used the word "gay" most often among US presidents. / Courtesy of inhabitat.com
By Kim Su-mi
Of recent U.S. presidents, Barack Obama has used the word “gay” most often, reported the Associated Press.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, has reported that Obama has used the word 272 times, which substantially exceeds any of his recent predecessors, since his inauguration in 2009.
The number increases to 421 if the words “lesbian,” “bisexual” and “transgender” are included.
Neither George H.W. Bush nor Ronald Reagan had used the word in any of their public remarks.
Former President Bill Clinton comes closest to Obama and he was known to have used the word “gay” 216 times during his incumbency.
The term was used 80 times by Clinton while discussing new preventive laws in regard to Mathew Shepard who was a gay University of Wyoming student.
He was beaten to death in 1998.
Chad Griffin, the head of Human Rights Campaign, said, “Words matter an enormous amount, and when President Obama uses his platform to declare that gay people are just as American as anyone else, it has a huge and historic effect.”
Currently, Washington DC and 17 states, including Massachusetts, allow same-sex marriage.
States which approve such marriages are mostly concentrated in Northeast and none in South.
However, the South has shown a potential for change when Virginia’s new Democratic attorney general said that the state’s voter-approved ban on homosexual matrimony goes against the constitution and that he will try to overturn it.