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"The LGBT Caucus is about 500 strong at this year&amp;#x27;s DNC, and its meeting today drew VIP speakers like Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), chair of the Democratic National Committee. To a loud ovation, she commended the Dems for being a &amp;quot;party of diversity.&amp;quot; Randi Libin, 19, a Greensboro College student attending her first convention as a friend of a delegate, agrees. &amp;quot;I feel like there&amp;#x27;s a huge presence here. It&amp;#x27;s not even just acceptance. It&amp;#x27;s like a step beyond that--like welcome with open arms and we&amp;#x27;re equal. It&amp;#x27;s a big deal to me,&amp;quot; she says. She skipped out on school to attend the DNC events! &amp;quot;A lot of places you don&amp;#x27;t get that. I go to a really small Christian school and if we have our gay student alliance posters up, they will get ripped down. To be in a place where I don&amp;#x27;t have to hide, where I don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about who knows about me being a lesbian, it&amp;#x27;s just wonderful. I feel free.&amp;quot; President Obama&amp;#x27;s support of LGBT issues makes him Libin&amp;#x27;s pick for Election 2012. &amp;quot;I am a political science major and my plan is to find a way to make sure legislation keeps on getting more and more progressive,&amp;quot; she told me. &amp;quot;My greatest fear is that we&amp;#x27;ll regress back to the times when you can&amp;#x27;t be openly gay in the military, when people can be fired for being gay and that still happens all across the nation...[I&amp;#x27;m worried] that marriages that exist now will cease to exist anymore, that&amp;#x27;s why I want to see Obama reelected. He will keep that intact and keep everything moving forward.&amp;quot; A pamphlet with all of Obama&amp;#x27;s LGBT accomplishments from today&amp;#x27;s meeting As Wasserman-Schultz noted in her speech today, 2012 could be a landmark year for Congress too: more LGBTs could be elected to Congress than ever before, and Wisconsin&amp;#x27;s Tammy Baldwin (she&amp;#x27;s speaking tonight) could be the first openly gay woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate in November, as well. How do LGBT issues influence you when you think about casting your vote? More Election 2012 stuff you&amp;#x27;ll love: *VIDEO: CNN&amp;#x27;s Brooke Baldwin Talks to Reporter Rachel Streitfeld at the RNC *What New Stats Reveal About Non-Voting Women (Including That Obama Would Win in 2012 If They Voted!) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2012/09/why-one-college-student-skippe>