Sex, religion, and politics. Well, I'm not going to talk about religion, but I am talking about the other two. Specifically, the televised interviews with six of the eight Democratic candidates for President, sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and aired live on Logo, a cable channel geared at gay and lesbian viewers.

Who was there? In alphabetical order, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. Gravel was initially not invited because HRC based their invitations on "how much money have you raised?". Apparently, large gay groups in New York and Los Angeles complained mightily, and HRC issued a fast invite to Gravel -- who wasn't about to let HRC off the hook and actually related the circumstances behind his belated invitation at the start of his interview.

The format was that each candidate got between 15 minutes to answer questions from a panel of three -- including Melissa Etheridge and Joe Salmonese, head of HRC -- then end up with a one-minute closing statement. At no time did all six candidates share the stage -- this was not a debate by any means, although later speakers got to refer to statements made by their rivals earlier in the night.

For those who are wondering, the first speaker was Obama, and the last was Clinton.

The immediate question is, of course, "Who won?" It's a highly subjective question. My answer would be John Edwards, and you'll see why in my comments on the candidates below...

Barack Obama has the worst off-the-cuff style of the six. He fumbled and bumbled his way around softball questions (which, basically, almost all of the questions to all the candidates were) and never seemed to give a direct answer. Maybe it was nerves, but he's already done live debates with his rivals and come out OK. And he (and all the candidates) were in front of an audience already disposed to be friendly. It's just inexplicable.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, did just fine as a speaker. Her big mistake? Saying that the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" couldn't be achieved until she was President. C'mon, now -- she's on the Armed Services Committee, so she could bring up a repeal bill any time she wants. The Democrats have control of both houses of Congress (amazingly, she seemed to be saying that the Republicans still control Congress), and there's bipartisan support for repeal. So what's she afraid of -- a Presidential veto that can't be overridden? All that means is you bring the bill up again and again until (a) the President doesn't veto, or (b) you get a vote that will assure veto override. She seemed to be the candidate of inaction -- something the GLBT community doesn't need.

Dennis Kucinich went on and on about how he was going to bring love to the White House and to the country. All I could think of was the satirical musical Of Thee I Sing, which told of a candidate running on a platform of love, and featured the song "Love Is Sweeping the Country". He also, when asked, stated that there wasn't one item on the GLBT agenda that he disagreed with. However, he's one of only two candidates who supported marriage equality (aka same-sex marriage). The other one is...

Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska who has somewhat of a history with progressive civil rights legislation. He was also the funniest of the candidates interviewed -- when asked why other men of his generation were so opposed to marriage equality and other GLBT rights issues, he said, "Because they're stupid!" Another similarity between Kucinich and Gravel: while the other candidates looked at their questioners, they looked around to the live studio audience when answering. They played the crowd, and the crowd responded.

Bill Richardson managed to shoot himself in the foot. He was more tongue-tied than Obama, and made a disastrous statement near the beginning of his interview saying he thought homosexuality was a choice. (Yes, his campaign put out a clarifying statement, but the damage was done.) He also brought up, several times, his record as a former congressman and as governor of New Mexico in terms of GLBT rights -- a very good record, and probably better than those of the other candidates -- but he never seemed to recover from his opening stumble.

John Edwards, on the other hand, not only spoke well but also was able to be articulate and forthright on those positions where he was at odds with GLBT political leaders without being defensive or apologetic. He did meander a little into his wife's on-air scolding of conservative pundit Ann Coulter, but he didn't drag it into his other answers. And he seemed convincing when he said that he would leave his religion outside the door when working as President.

Each of the candidates had good moments and bad ones. But taken on the whole, the clear winner in my estimation was John Edwards; and the clear loser, unfortunately, was Bill Richardson.