US: Obama has mentioned the word ‘gay’ more than any other president
Barack Obama has used the word ‘gay’ more times than any other US president in recent history, according to an LGBT charity.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) say that he has used the word 272 times on the record since taking office in 2009, while Bill Clinton used the word 216 times.
George W Bush only used the word on the record twice, once while condemning marriage equality, while the report found both George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan never used the word in presidential remarks.
President Obama also used the words ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ a total of 421 times, far more than any other president.
Chad Griffin, president of HRC, said: “Words matter an enormous amount, and when President Obama uses his platform to declare that LGBT people are just as American as anyone else, it has a huge and historic effect”.
“Evidence suggests that when people know us, they don’t want to discriminate against us.”
President Obama is much more vocal about LGBT rights than his predecessors, openly supporting marriage equality, criticising countries for adopting anti-gay laws, and releasing a targeted LGBT manifesto.
However, he has been criticised for being slow to act on the gay blood ban, and for the sluggish approach to gay rights in the first term of his administration.
Last year, Newsweek proclaimed Obama was the first ‘gay’ president.
