President Obama has used the word "gay" in official remarks 272 times since taking office

His predecessor George W. Bush said "gay" twice, once in a speech denouncing marriage equality

Published January 24, 2014 2:31PM (EST)

                                    (Flickr Creative Commons)
(Flickr Creative Commons)

The Human Rights Campaign did an analysis of the speeches and statements from recent presidents and found that President Obama has used the word "gay" 272 since taking office, far more than any of his predecessors. For context, George W. Bush used the word twice, and once was in a speech denouncing marriage equality. (Compassionate conservative.) Bill Clinton came in at 216, with 80 of the utterances occurring during speeches addressing the murder of Matthew Shepard and hate-crime legislation; George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan never said "gay" once in public remarks.

As the Associated Press notes, Obama also has used "lesbian," ''gay," ''bisexual" or "transgender" a total of 421 times in public addresses over the last five years, which HRC says has played a role in shaping the public's evolving views on LGBTQ equality.

"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," Chad Griffin, the organization's president, said in a statement on the report. "Evidence suggests that when people know us, they don't want to discriminate against us."

 


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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Gay Lgbt Rights Lgbtq Equality Lgbtq Rights