Whilst you would be forgiven for thinking that only two political parties contest the US Presidential elections – the Republicans and the Democrats – the reality is quite different.

A wide range of parties from all shades of the political spectrum put up candidates. Of course, given the vast sums of money necessary to mount a Presidential campaign, some of the smaller parties candidates barely register on the chart.

Such was the case in 1980 when David McReynolds stood as the first openly gay Presidential candidate on behalf of the Socialist Party of the USA.

McReynolds made it clear that, whilst he was openly gay, he was standing as a socialist candidate not a ‘gay’ one. He did support LGBT rights but was opposed to hate crime legislation, arguing that prosecutors already have too much power.

In the course of his campaign he was involved in an interesting debate with Communist Party Vice-Presidential candidate Angela Davis. At the time of the debate Davis was still some years off coming out as a lesbian. Also, her membership of the Communist Party meant that she was required to support the Soviet line on repression of LGBT people. (Davis didn’t come out until 1997, having been expelled from the Communist Party in 1991 for opposing the Soviet coup against Mikhail Gorbachev.)

McReynolds received 6,994 votes (0.01% of all votes cast). The Communist Party candidate, Gus Hall, received 44,933. Ronald Reagan received 43,903,230 votes.