Minneapolis Mayor Rybak on LGBT Contributions to City

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak recently spoke on the anti-gay, anti-immigrant rhetoric of Washington politicians and how gays, lesbians, and immigrants have helped build the Minneapolis we all enjoy today. The video is from MayorTV, a project of the Nation and the Drummajor Institute, a project that hopes to insert dialogue about America's cities into the presidential debate.

"I was elected right after 9/11," said Rybak, "when there were a lot of messages coming out of Washington that attacked immigrants, that attacked the gay and lesbian community. But you can hardly go to a block in Minneapolis where there isn't a significant contribution from the gay and lesbian community. And you can go to streets that were moribund before large scale immigration happened that are now totally revived because of it. My city is stronger because we had different values than the Washington values that have been pushed onto us."