Lance Bass says do it for the teens while Brent Hartinger says our democracy is at stake

Tonight at 9PM EST/6 PM PST Logo (AfterElton.com's parent company) and the Human Rights Campaign make history when Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravell participate in the first ever televised presidential forum addressing GLBT issues.

How cool is that? To help stimulate conversation about which issues should be discussed and are most pressing for our community, Logo established a website -- Visible Vote '08 -- and invited a wide-ranging group of GLBT voices to blog about what they find most urgent in this next election. Participants include tennis legend Billie Jean King, author Charles Kincaid, singers Melissa Etheridge and Lance Bass, and our very own Brent Hartinger.

I've been checking out the blog daily and thought I'd post a couple of quotes from some of the posts. Lance Bass writes about gay marriage and how the fact it is denied to gays and lesbians hurts today's youth because they see no place for themselves in American society.

My main fear is for the LGBT youth in America and around the world who, for one reason or another aren’t able to cope or can’t escape their prejudice cities, towns and communities. I often wonder how many teens have committed suicide because they’re struggling with their sexuality and feel the incredible weight of the shame their community puts on homosexuality? I am hoping in this election we have Democratic candidates who feel as passionately about this issue as I do.

Meanwhile our own Brent Hartinger tells how he came to believe our very democracy is at stake

I’ve completely given up on the Republicans. All the elected ones have either supported the beyond-appalling actions of the Bush administration, or they’ve enabled them by simply remaining part of the national party.

BTW, the utterly brilliant partner he refers to in his post? Yes, it's moi!

Anyway, go check out the site, and watch the debate on Logo tonight or online. Brent and I will be blogging it as well, so if you miss it check back here for our reactions!