Here's a taste:.June 17, 2009 | Team Obama keeps telling lesbian and gay Americans like me to be patient. If we just wait a little longer, administration officials whisper to us lovingly (and out of earshot of the media), after the White House finishes with healthcare reform and getting the troops out of Iraq, your time will come. In the meantime, cheer up -- we put a gay band in the inaugural parade!The rest is HERE. (There is one pop up, but just close it and read on.)
Everyone loves a parade, but we don't like being betrayed. And while gay and lesbian Americans were initially willing to cut our new president some slack, the president's now-clear reticence to follow through on even one of his many campaign promises to the gay community has put the Democratic Party on the precipice of an ugly and very public divorce with this once-solid constituency.
During the presidential primaries, then-candidate Obama promoted himself as the biggest defender of gay rights since Harvey Milk. He would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights, he promised, and he even out-gayed Hillary Clinton: telling gay and lesbian voters that while she was for a partial repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he'd get rid of the whole damn thing.
And there was much rejoicing.
Then, not so much.
About a year before the November election, primary challenger Obama invited Donnie McClurkin, a homophobic gospel singer who claims to have been "cured" of his own homosexuality, to lead a series of concerts in the South in order to woo the black vote. The gays were not amused, but candidate Obama held firm. The gays forgave the Big O until a year later, when then-President-elect Obama chose evangelical preacher (and well-known homophobe) Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer. Again, the gays expressed their ire, Obama wouldn't budge, and his advisors continued to whisper sweet nothings in our ears about how glorious the future would be once Dear Leader was finally in office.
But a funny thing happened on the way to equality. Rather than clouds opening up and angels descending from on high, Barack Obama became president and things never got better for the gays. In fact, they got decidedly worse.
And so it goes.
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One doesn't want to believe this but I'm fear that it is true. We're going to get thrown under the bus again. Let's face it, we're the last disposable minority.
ReplyDeleteperhaps we have to wait- the man has so much expectations upon him. I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear we have been used again. Most of what Obama could do for us, he could do with a stroke of his pen. It does not take the effort of ending the war or fixing the economy. It only takes the courage of owning up to and fulfilling your promises.
ReplyDelete