A lot of people are asking if the impending possible repeal of DADT will affect the strained relationship between the gay community and the president. We in the gay community have had a rough few years, between Prop. 8, Maine and other states voting to deny us our rights, the focus on gay kids killing themselves and lack of action on our rights. We've had to fight our government every step of the way just to secure a right that most of the country supports.
Indeed we've been pushing the administration to move on our rights, and we've had to get in their faces and chain ourselves outside the president's house. And even still, during the lame duck, Reid wanted to bring up DADT repeal, and "[t]he administration was definitely caught off guard" by that.
But he's signed the bill for possible future DADT repeal, and that does make him the most productive president on gay rights we have had so far. That can't be overstated. So, will this action help to heal the divide between the White House and our community?
A blogger at Huffington Post has a succinct summation of the question behind the president's history with the gay rights movement:
True, President Obama must still undo DOMA as well as pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to meet all of his LGBT campaign pledge. But considering he's two-for-two in less than two years, isn't it time Obama's gay-haters began showing him some love?
I agree. Can the gay haters who hate President Obama (and have proven so by fighting against the government in order to regain our rights that they are taking from us) show President Obama some love? Obviously, we're gay haters so it might be difficult for us to take off our hate blinders and stop hating him, but can't we try?
He continues:
Or at least move on from the notion that Obama is a "homophobe," a "bigot," an "enemy of the gays" -- and any of the other epithets routinely hurled against him.
Obviously, we're very bad people who need to stop hating. If the president of the United States has us fired from our military careers, can't we just stop hating him? We should obviously work on expressing our outrage better. Perhaps we can channel our outrage into dancing at a HRC black tie gala.
But it gets even better, because, you see, the gay haters who obviously loathe the president do not acknowledge his long fight to end DADT:
Indeed, despite the president's monthslong maneuvering to end DADT's 17-year reign of terror, many LGBT voices are reducing his role to marginal, 11th-hour efforts to appease angry activists. And some are simply leaving President Obama out of the picture entirely.
MONTHS! This president has taken massive hits in popularity and has received negative comments from Republicans for saying in his State of the Union address that he will work to repeal the law that bans gays from service. He has received snarky and rude posts from conservatives. I'm talking dozens. SEVERAL POSTS! While the gay community has been fighting... err... hating, to remove this policy since 1965 and thousands of servicemembers lost their careers, and probably their finances from court fees, we do need to realize that the president has spent more months than any president on repeal.
As an example of the people who do not give the president any credit, the article cites and quotes, rightly, this tepid, short and insincere statement from gay hater David Mixner:
Long-time LGBT leader David Mixner offered little more than a lukewarm "the repeal of DADT would not have happened without Pres. Obama... he was clearly on our side."
It would not have happened without him. He's clearly on our side. You can't get anymore lukewarm than that. What are the gays... excuse me, gay haters, thinking? With statements like "it would not have happened without him" it's obvious that we're hurting the president and damaging our relationship with him, when he's clearly been reaching out. For MONTHS!