[ cheers and applause ] good evening, everyone, and welcome to a historic night. Cnns democratic president ial town hall, equality in america. Im don lemon, thank you so much for being here. There was a time when people were afraid, and you know many still are. Theyre afraid to come out to their friends and their families for fear of the consequences. Now it has been four years since the Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage is legal. It is a big step. But there is still a whole lot of work to do. Tonights cnn and the Human Rights Campaign have been hosting an unprecedented event where members of the Lgbtq Community and their allies can ask the candidates questions that are important to them. Well soon hear from senator amy klobuchar, julian castro, and businessman tom steyer. But first i want you to welcome to the stage now congressman beto orourke. Hey, everybody, good to see
you. How you doing, congressman . Good to see you. I saw you on the street and you introduced yourself. How m
their commitment to the taxpayer, to our fellow americans we will take over that patent and we will make sure that prep is distributed to every person in america who needs that. and the discrimination against those who have hiv in america today. congressman, if you will, let me follow up on that. sure. in dozens of states in this country a person can be prosecuted for not revealing their hiv status. a person can face up to 15 years in prison for not disclosing their status. even if it means it s undetectable. should these laws be overturned? i think they should. i think the goal has to be equal treatment, which we ve been talking about here today, nondiscrimination in america and it also has to be on the public health needs of our fellow americans. instead of being focus on pen penalizing or punishing or incarcerating people with hiv,