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 | | Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun | | | Friend of the Community Inducted 2007 | | | | Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, 60, a prominent supporter of LGBT rights and marriage equality throughout her political career, she was the first U.S. Senator to appoint an LGBT liaison and, while in the Senate, firmly opposed the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. | |
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| Carol Moseley Braun has been a
prominent supporter of LGBT rights and Cmarriage equality throughout her
political career. In 1992, as the first African
American woman ever elected to the U.S.
Senate, she became the first senator ever to
appoint an LGBT liaison. While in the Senate,
she staunchly opposed the U.S. military “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” policy when many others were
willing to accept the policy as a compromise. | |
| Braun has enjoyed a long and active career in and out of political office, locally
and nationally. She served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of
Illinois from 1973 to 1977 and spent the next 10 years as a member of the Illinois
House of Representatives. From 1988 to 1992 she served as the Cook County
recorder of deeds. | |
| In the wake of the 1991 controversy over the appointment of Clarence Thomas as
a U.S. Supreme Court justice, she decided to make her ground-breaking run for
the U.S. Senate. She bested both a popular incumbent and a second male
opponent to become the Democratic Party’s nominee and then went on to win the
1992 general election. This catapulted her to national and worldwide
recognition. | |
| After her defeat in the November 1998 Senate race, she served as a consultant to
the U.S. Department of Education and then as ambassador to New Zealand and
Samoa from 1999 through 2001. Since leaving public service, Braun has taught
business law and political science at Morris Brown College in Atlanta and
DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in Chicago, pursued
business interests and her law practice, served on corporate boards, and received
numerous honors and awards. | |
| In 1993, as the Senate debated President Bill Clinton’s abortive effort to end the
long-standing ban on gay and lesbian military personnel, Braun cast one of only
12 votes against the law that put “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” into effect. She
supported hate crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
both of which have yet to become law, and was a consistent and vocal supporter
of marriage rights, believing that LGBT Americans have a fundamental right to
marry the persons they love. When the so-called Defense of Marriage Act was
approved by the Senate, she and her Illinois colleague, the late Sen. Paul Simon,
cast two of the only 14 votes against it. | |
| For her ongoing committed efforts in behalf of the inclusion of LGBT rights in a
broader vision of human rights and democratic participation in American
politics, for her consistent support of issues central to LGBT communities in
Chicago and beyond, Carol Moseley Braun has been selected as a historic
“Friend of the Community.” | |
| This biography is as of the induction date. It has not been updated. |
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