When he doesn't think I should have the same rights he has?
Yes, this is a gay rant in the aftermath of Prop 8 being overturned.
The President promised to be a fierce advocate for the rights of gays and lesbians. Yet at almost every chance he has been presented with, he has either ignored us or worse.
The man is a Constitutional scholar. The White House could have released the followed statement: "As a Constitutional lawyer by training, the President agrees with today's decision." Nothing more, nothing less. Is it the endorsement of marriage that i want? No. But neither is it a cowardly follow such as "the President doesn't support gay marriage." On the day of our friggin victory, a shiv into our sides! Why?
Is he trying to please someone or do we have a bigot in the White House?
If he's trying to please someone, who could it be?
Much of his campaign energy was from younger voters, who support marriage rights in large numbers. How does this keep them energized?
A fair amount of money came from gay voters. Not anymore. Why would we bother? I voted for him. Should I even show up to the polls when the Dems in Congress aren't doing much on our issues either?
The only group one can imagine he's trying to please are religious folks. Of them most of them aren't voting Obama anyway.
So that leaves a question of whether the man is a bigot, a homophobe.
So who's to the left of Obama on this issue?
Laura Bush - kinda interesting
Dick Cheney - yeah gay daughter and all, but still Dick Cheney
Ted Olsen - let me repeat, Ted Olsen - the man who gave helped the SCOTUS give us George W Bush
So some of you will probably tell me this is a tough issue, politically dicey and that we need to work other things first. My emotional response to you is to ask which right you are willing to have put up to a vote by a large group to which you don't belong. But then there's the question of leadership:
A white man born in central Texas who would later be President of the United States knew he was putting his party at risk for a generation in certain parts of the country when he pushed for civil rights legislation for African Americans. He did this because he was a leader and leaders know that they need to do the right thing. LBJ was a fierce advocate. Barack Obama, a man born of parents of different races, in a time before the Civil Rights Act and before interracial marriage was legal in all states is now telling us that separate can be equal. What are we supposed to conclude about him?
As a gay man, voting for Obama again would be like an African American voting for Nixon after hearing about the Southern Strategy.
Maybe this isn't your issue. You're straight, you don't know or care about anyone who's gay and you think there are more important issues. I can understand that. Maybe you think health care is all it. OK, everybody, gay and straight, benefit from health care. Oh wait, in Obama's world, so do insurance companies. In the end, it doesn't matter what the issue is, he's not really with us.
It's time to take the blinders off. We were had.