[ 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
society. so i think that we didn t want to overly focus on the things that we see in a media. we do talk about that but really wanted to show how people are living. that s a common thread. then among the things that they are facing while living, the threat of physical violence, i mean that s something that many transgender people have to teal request, are confronted by. you met with the family and friends of one outspoken black transwoman who was killed in a hate crime. what does her story tell but the outright stranger many black transwomen are facing? i think a lot of times black transwomen feel that when we are talking about black lives matter we are not talking about black translives. they think they have to get their own backs and this whole story is how i need to we
siblings that demonstrated earlier, especially transwomen. let me tell you something, black transwomen are being killed in this country and cnn you have erased black transwomen for the last time. black transwomen are dying. our lives matter. i am an extraordinary black transwoman, and i deserve to be here. my black transsisters that are here. i am so tired of it s not just my black transwomen and black transbrothers too. i m going to say what i m going to say. come here. i want you to talk, what s your name? blossom c. brown. blossom, thank you, let me tell you something. don t come on the stage. and may i have the mic? may i have the mic? blossom, let me tell you something. the reason that we re here is to validate people like you.
they usually go with the democratic party, and say this is a civil rights issue of our time. which side are you on? there s a black transwoman who risks life every day by getting out of bed. do you stand with protecting this person or not? and i think the public would be on the side of the person who is bold. ted cruz, i don t want to miss this. ted cruz in his first campaign stop in iowa said the fortune 500 is running shamelessly to endorse the radical gay marriage agenda over religious liberty to say we will persecute a christian pastor a jewish rabbi. so this is the one guy not in the shadow. he s really running and is still using i just want us to be careful that it s all over. this guy is running for the republican nomination. that s the thing and you just said it so eloquently. he has to run and try to win through the primary. what we know is politicians across the board often miscalculate what motivate