This morning I awoke to yet another recommended diary begging our indulgence for President Obama's failure to act on a variety of issues which are important to this or that individual member of the dailykos community. Unlike other diaries that promoted a conveniently inflexible version of the Obama administration's obligations under the constitution to defend unpopular or unpalatable laws, this new diary invoked a very emotional 'House divided' argument to beg our continued indulgence for the Obama administration's manifest failure to be perfect. 'We NEED you,' the diarist said - almost persuasively. But that begs a question near and dear to many gay and lesbian democrats right now: Do gays and lesbians need the democratic party? There are risks in triangulating, as the President and his advisors are clearly attempting to do right now. And I'm wondering, given all that's happened, and not happened, in the past five months, if the administration and Democrats in Congress are properly calculating those risks.
I'm a sales analyst. Given time, I could create the most gorgeous spreadsheet you ever saw regarding the risks to the Democratic Party of throwing away its gay and lesbian support. But I'm going to concentrate on just a couple of data points right now, flavored with an anecdote or two and some educated future-oriented thought.
The data points:
2000 WA Senate Election: Maria Cantwell (D) v. Slade Gorton (R) - 2,229 vote margin (0.09%)
2004 WA Governor's Election: Christine Gregoire (D) v. Dino Rossie (R) - 133 vote margin (<0.01%)</p>
2008 MN Senate Election: Al Franken (D) v. Norm Coleman (R) - TBD but looking good!
I could go on and on - Bush v. Gore, anybody? How about all of those close battles in swing House districts? Local elections - lord knows, but there have got to be hundreds of battles that were decided by a mere handful of votes. Indulge me for a moment and consider the possibility that those votes, those slenderest of margins, are gay and lesbian votes.
That should concern you, because those votes and that support should never have been assumed by the Democratic Party. Indeed, that support is never merely assumed, and is always pandered to - until the day after the election is certified, at which time it becomes, as we are seeing, the mother of all assumptions. Whence this idea that gays and lesbians are somehow natural constituents of the Democratic Party? I think it's an assumption that was more or less shared on both sides, at least until recently, and extends and feeds on the Republican Party's harsh rejection of gays and lesbians, which at some point will become unsustainable given the demographic decline of the Republican base.
But let's say we took gay and lesbian issues off the table. Let's say we woke up one day to a Republican Party that was willing to start an authentic conversation with gays and lesbians? Let's say Republicans started to reframe same-sex marriage as a conservative goal? What if Republicans invited gay and lesbian families out in the burbs and beyond to be part of their conversation? What if gay and lesbian business owners felt they had the freedom to align their interests with, say, the Chamber of Commerce, rather that the Democratic Party? Think it can't happen? It already has. I know many, many gay men and women who would vote Republican in a heartbeat if they were only asked nicely. I know some who already do.
Now let's say the gay and lesbian vote is, oh, 3% of the electorate - that seems to be the going guess these days. Given the events of the last week or so, do you think the Democratic Party has closed the deal with gay and lesbian donors, volunteers and voters? Do you think the Democratic Party deserves to assume the support of its GLBT constituents? There's a whole alphabet soup of issues at the top of this post on which we were promised prompt, specific action, and are now being told to piss off and wait our turn (which never, ever comes). Are those margins close enough to invite some different thinking about how Democratic elected officials view the promises they make to their gay and lesbian supporters?
Ask yourself, why would these people take this? Why not vote Green if you must, or hold your nose and vote Republican? What kind of codependent abuse junkie would put up with this for so long and still come back for more? Could it be that gay and lesbians are in fact capable of seeing beyond their own narrow interests to the forest of issues on which the Democratic Party has and continues to be right? But then ask yourself, when is enough really and truly Enough?
I will never vote Republican. I want the Democratic Party to get this right. But don't confuse my ire with 'poutrage' or any of the other crappy pejoratives being thrown around in this community like so much Mardi Gras coin. It does a real disservice to people who deserve a hell of a lot better.