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More than 1,100 LGBTQ celebrities, lawmakers and leaders signed a letter released Wednesday by national LGBTQ rights groups endorsing Vice President Kamala HarrisrCO presidential run.

The letter includes signatures from actors Matt Bomer, George Takei, Billy Eichner, and Sophia Bush and her partner, Ashlyn Harris, a former U.S. WomenrCOs National Team soccer player. Out elected officials, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Reps. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., Mark Takano, D- Calif., and Becca Balint, D-Vt., also signed, alongside notable figures such as Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that
legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, and Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998.

Harris has a two-decade track record of supporting gay rights, which is part of the reason LGBTQ advocacy groups, lawmakers and celebrities have been
vocal in backing the presidential hopeful. Some LGBTQ people, however, have taken issue with her record on trans rights and criminal justice issues.

During her time as a district attorney in San Francisco, Harris helped make California the first state in the country to ban the so-called gay/trans
panic defense, which has allowed those accused of homicide to receive lesser sentences by saying they panicked after having found out a victimrCOs sexual orientation or gender identity, the letter says.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lgbtq-celebrities-lawmakers- kamala-harris-rcna163542

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Author claims Harris 'deep-sixed' release of documents ID'ing clergy accused of sex abuse as city DA

Presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris' handling of cases involving alleged child sex abuse by Catholic priests while she was
San Francisco District Attorney should receive more scrutiny, investigative journalist and author Peter Schweizer told "Tucker Carlson Tonight"
Wednesday.

Schweizer told host Tucker Carlson that when Harris took office in 2004, her predecessor, Democrat Terence Hallinan, left her with "hundreds of pages" of internal Catholic Church documents that included names of 40 accused clergy.

"Hallinan was using those documents to build criminal cases and he was also planning to release them after redacting the names of victims," he said. "Kamala Harris actually deep-sixed ... those documents, and those documents disappeared, much to the chagrin of victims' groups.

"So itrCOs a massive cover-up and a lot of the people that financed her campaign to beat Hallinan were law firms and lawyers and people connected to the church hierarchy who did not want those documents to come out."

In June 2019, the Associated Press published a report headlined, "Victims' question Kamala Harris' record on clergy abuse" in which survivors of clergy abuse and their attorneys claimed Harris was consistently silent on the Catholic ChurchrCOs abuse scandal rCo first as district attorney in San Francisco and later as CaliforniarCOs attorney general.

In a statement to The Associated Press at the time, the Harris campaign underscored her record of supporting child sex abuse victims but did not address her silence regarding victims abused by Catholic clerics.

rCLKamala Harris has been a staunch advocate on behalf of sexual assault victims, especially child sexual assault victims,rCY the statement said, noting that she rCLused her position as District Attorney to create the first unit focused on child sexual assault cases in the officerCOs history.rCY

The statement said she withheld documents regarding clergy sexual abuse from attorneys and news reporters to protect the identities of victims rCo reasoning faulted by victims and their lawyers.

Catholics make up large voting blocs in the city and the state, accounting
for roughly a quarter of the population in both San FranciscorCOs metro area and across California.

"From 2004 to 2011, she was San Francisco attorney general. She did not prosecute a single case of sexual abuse involving Catholic Church priests," Schweizer said. "To put that in context, of the 50 largest cities in
America, all 50 of them prosecuted at least one case during that time
period, except for Kamala Harris."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/peter-schweizer-kamala-harris-catholic- church-abuse
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