Miss New York 2010
Claire Buffie
is the first Miss America contestant in the 90-year history of the pageant to run on a gay rights platform. Plum TV caught up with Buffie  at the Empire State Pride Agenda’s annual Hampton’s Tea Dance.

 Claire  is an outspoken advocate of human rights, opening the dialogue about equality amongst youth, teens and adults alike with her platform “Straight for Equality: Let’s Talk.” The issues of gay rights make up the civil rights movement of our generation and reach far beyond marriage equality.
 
As Miss New York 2010, Claire aims to break the stigma of marginalized youth, eliminating discriminatory vocabulary and changing the climate in New York schools. She celebrates diversity and the things that make us all unique and strives to instill pride, dignity and respect in developing minds and compassionate hearts. This will be a year of change in New York State and Claire is ready to support this incredible movement.

Says Buffie: “I feel like gay rights are the civil rights movement of my generation, and I think it’s really important to have straight ally support because any time you want to effect a change with a minority you have to have support from the majority, and I’m that voice now…My older sister Sarah is a lesbian, but in addition to her, I grew up in the performing arts. So many of my friends are LGBT, and it’s my duty as a straight ally to represent them.”