This shows just how liberal the senator has been for much of his public life - and perhaps how ahead he was on some of these issues. And while he told Time's Jay Newton-Small in March that he has no current stance on marijuana legalization (but backs medical marijuana), he characterized the war on drugs as costly and destructive.īut going back to at least his long-shot bid for governor in the 1970s, Sanders held extremely libertarian - some would say progressive - views for his time. He was one of the few federal lawmakers to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal ban on same-sex marriages, in the 1990s.
Sanders has carried many of these positions to this day.
the billionaires: Vermont's socialist senator is running for presidentīut it took decades for the American public to come around to majority support on these issues: It wasn't until 2013 that a majority of Americans supported marijuana legalization, the early 2000s that most consistently responded in favor of legal gay and lesbian relations, and 2011 that a majority first reported backing same-sex marriage rights. In 2015, 69 percent said gay and lesbian relationships between consenting adults should be legal, and 60 percent backed marriage equality. In 2014, 51 percent said marijuana should be legal. That's starkly changed, according to the same Gallup data. In 1977, the earliest year of polling data, 43 percent of Americans said gay and lesbian relations between consenting adults should not be legal, while 43 percent said they should be legal. In 1972, 81 percent of Americans said marijuana should be illegal - which suggests even more would favor the prohibition of more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin. These stances were far removed from public opinion at the time, according to Gallup surveys on marijuana and gay and lesbian rights. In a 1972 letter to a local newspaper - which was recently resurfaced by Chelsea Summers at the New Republic - Sanders wrote that he supported abolishing "all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior (adultery, homosexuality, etc.)" as part of his campaign for Vermont governor: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was calling for many of these changes decades ago. But one Democratic candidate for president, Sen. And, he’s less likely to get us involved in a military conflict that any candidate on either side,” said Michael Patterson, 58, a public-relations consultant from Cleveland.Most Americans now support legally allowing gay and lesbian relationships, same-sex marriage, and personal marijuana use after decades of shifting public opinion. “I like what he has to say, but I’m not 100 percent sure. In addition to the thousands of faithful, some in attendance were candidate shopping on Monday night. Sanders is doing for us and this nation,” she said. “‘Feeling the Bern’ is like when you get a good workout … you are getting stronger. Nina Turner, a Clevelander who raised some eyebrows by endorsing Sanders over Clinton. And what they mean by family values is that our gay brothers and sisters should not have the right to get married,” Sanders said. “What they mean is that no woman in America should have the right to control their own body. Using his fingers to signify quote marks, Sanders also chided Republicans for their “family values.” “Work to create a government that works for all of us and just not a handful of billionaires.” “When we come together, we can defeat the people with all the money and the people with all the power,” he said. government and promoting “grotesque” wage inequality. Here are five times Bernie Sanders was a true LGBT ally (including one time where he got a homophobe all the way together right on Capitol Hill). Sanders, to chants of “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!”, talked at length on rallying poor and middle-class Americans to reclaim their country, and their economic futures, from the billionaires, bankers and brokers he portrays as buying the U.S. We will not turn our backs on the refugees,” Sanders said to cheers. “As Americans, we will not succumb to racism, we will not allow ourselves to be divided and succumb to Islamophobia.
Kasich does not want them in Ohio, saying they could pose a security risk. John Kasich, who are opposing the immigration of war-displaced Syrians to America. Sanders then took an indirect shot at Republicans, including Ohio Gov. … As Americans, we will not be terrorized. “Now is not the time for cheap political talk or trying to take political advantage of this difficult moment. “In my view, now is the time for developing a serious and effective strategy to destroy ISIS,” he said.