The Advocate: Hope and History (The hero was a player after all)

[FreeState]

http://www.advocate.com/issue_story_ektid102115.asp

Hope and History

As a candidate Obama promised us a lot; as president he’s delivered very little -- and many gay people are getting impatient. Does the outcry unmask this president’s indifference, or reveal our own impotence as a movement?

He looked like a hero, and that was the problem. Barack Obama seemed almost reckless with the truth, implausibly idealistic -- and (though we might not have said this out loud) we worried that America wasn’t “ready for a black president.”

After eight years of George W. Bush, we were sick of being excluded, sick of being hated. Hillary Clinton seemed the safer choice. We knew that she knew how power worked, and we wanted someone who could win. Moreover, many gay leaders -- the men and women with money and influence, whose success was built on cunning -- looked at her and saw themselves: making her way by wile, unafraid to sacrifice integrity when the game demands it.

But truth will out, and many placed their bets on Barack Obama, and when he took the lead in the primaries, he won over most of the rest. He talked to us -- and about us -- more, and more explicitly, than any nominee before him. And not just when he had to. Not just at Human Rights Campaign dinners. At black churches, in his stump speech, on the night he was elected: He said the word that every major candidate before him had found every excuse not to say. He named us. He said gay.

After his election Obama named someone else. The world’s most influential Protestant minister, Rick Warren, who campaigned against gay marriage, was asked to give the inauguration’s invocation. Obama tried to quell outrage and concern by restating his commitment to be “a fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.” And during his first months in office, while he worked with Congress on the economic stimulus package and the wars, and laid groundwork for legislation to protect the environment and reform health care, we were on our best behavior, waiting for him to reveal his plans to keep his promises to us.

Momentum for gay equality kept building -- in the courts, in legislatures, and in culture. Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine legalized gay marriage -- which was, significantly, also endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Dick Cheney too announced his support for marriage equality, as did top Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s presidential campaign. Polls showed clear majorities supporting repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” even among conservatives and churchgoers -- constituencies that had long been in favor of the antigay military policy. Still, through all of this, one word was conspicuously absent from the president’s vocabulary.

The hero was a player after all.....

[joeybee12]

1. Maybe I'm more jaded than most...but this is what I expected...

...politicians are politicians are politicians.

[mitchtv]

2. I agree, a politician, no more , no less

He made that obvious to me early on.I expect nothing. That way , any gains are gravy.

[joeybee12]

3. That's why I stopped giving money...

...I expect something for my buck, and know I won't get it this way.

[mitchtv]

4. heh , they called me for money

I tolf them why not. I did give to the Calif Dems who passed a SS marriage bill only to be vetoed by Groper

[Meldread]

5. Really? What did anyone expect? This is what I expected.

Maybe this is why I am not as outraged as others. Disappointed? Yes. But this is what I expected. It is the same thing I expected of Hillary, it is the same thing I expected of Edwards. In the end we're an expendable minority to the Democratic Party. The party is made up of so many different groups and coalitions, that it is hard for us to truly have a voice at the table.

Gay rights? That risks angering the democrats from conservative states, who won't support it, or the African Americans which have many social conservatives among them, even as on the whole they are mostly economically liberal. Hispanics? More-or-less the same story as with African Americans. Unions? Similar story.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us in expendable territory. They come to us for our money and our votes, give us a few tokens to keep us somewhat occupied and believing that progress is being made, and then ignore our most critical issues.

Of course, the Democratic Party is still the best place for us when considering our alternative. So really, with no where else to go, what does the Democratic Party have to lose by ignoring our issues? Are we going to vote Republican? Ha. Yeah, go on - you might like being screwed in the ass, but at least the Dems use lube.

Then that brings us to our movement as a whole. The leaders of our movement live in "safe" areas. How many leaders of our movement live out in rural Oklahoma or in Mississippi? How many live out in Southern Virginia? They congregate around the three most safe areas in the United States: San Fransisco, Washington D.C., and New York City. They are typically upper middle class, and completely oblivious to some of the most pressing problems facing the vast majority of LGBT people in the country. They get taken into nice little private parties held by democratic fund raisers, shmooze with those in power, and come back to us holding out a few crumbs. They call that progress. They seek to avoid a real fight because that would upset the people that have wrapped them around their finger. They don't want to rock the democratic boat.

Until LGBT people are ready to fight, and ready to risk everything in that fight, then we will have to learn to be content to enjoy the crumbs we collect from the democratic table.