Right now there are two separate diaries addressing the "boycott of Obama", or more accurately, the campaign to get Obama and the rest of the elected Democratic officials to follow through on their party platform and campaign promises to the LGBT community.
Both of those diaries purport to be from progressives, but to me they both strike me as at best middle of the road. Much of the sentiment of those diarists and many of the commenters is blatantly ridiculous.
Let's get one thing straight, since both diaries do their best to muddy the issue; Obama promised to be a "fierce advocate" for the LGBT community. In response we progressives supported him with unprecedented levels of donations. He has failed to live up to that promise, as have the elected Democratic congress-critters. In response, many leading progressive figures on the net have launched a campaign to withhold funding until meaningful steps are taken to make LGBT citizens full and equal under the law.
Pretty clear, pretty rational and pretty obviously the Right Thing To Do. But you wouldn't know that by reading those two reclisted piles of crap. Here's some bullshit being foisted in those diaries and in the comments, that I saw. I didn't read every comment so I'm sure I'm missing some stuff:
Now is not the time to be putting pressure on Obama.
Bullshit. Now is exactly the time. He's had plenty of time to take action, and he's done nothing. In fact he's kicked sand in the faces of real progressives with regards to LGBT rights. We've been more than patient enough. Withholding further funding is a perfectly calm and rational response at this point. You say it's too early? That's ridiculous. The earlier the better. It gives more time for this problem to be corrected, and then donations to resume before 2012. There's not much time before 2010, but all the more reason Obama and the Dems in Congress should have acted by now.
Obama's done lots of good things! He's the best President ever!
He has done some good things, he's also done some bad things. But this isn't about his whole agenda (from what I've gathered anyway, I could be wrong I guess?) On LGBT rights he's failing miserably.
I'd argue he's so far failing miserably in regulating wallstreet, making progress toward getting us the fuck out of Iraq, closing Gitmo and I think he's taken the wrong strategy and made too many compromises on healthcare, but that's just my personal opinion, being the crazy ultra-progressive that I am.
Bush fucked everything up! Obama can't possibly have fixed everything by now!
Bush did fuck everything up. But nobody's asking Obama to have reduced unemployment to 3%, or have passed healthcare already, or have gotten all the troops home already. What this campaign is asking for is meaningful progress on LGBT civil rights. That's not asking much, and Obama certainly cannot blame his lack of progress on Bush. That's just a cop-out.
If you're one of the people joining in supporting those two ridiculous diaries, and saying this campaign is a bad idea, then I have one thing to say to you: You call yourself a progressive? Because you aren't. Step up to the plate. Accepting the status quo on LGBT civil rights is not a progressive position, and anyone who's OK with it can bite me.