In elections, gays tend to side with Democrats in high numbers. This should be obvious to anyone, really, since the other party hates us, wants us to strip our rights away, and the more extreme elements among them (read: the people most energized to GOTV for them) have said they want us dead or quarantined. It's no surprise that while Democrats are not perfect, gays would be a bit more inclined to choose not dying. In 1992, especially, Bill Clinton ran a very pro-gay campaign. He called himself the biggest gay rights supporter we've ever had the chance to vote for. So we did.
Barack Obama campaigned strongly in favor of gay rights (except marriage.) He openly talked about gay people from the beginning of his time in the national spotlight. In 2004, in his Democratic convention speech, he talked about gay people in the red states. During the campaign he addressed DADT, DOMA and other important issues in many speeches and discussions. He even went to a black church and addressed black homophobia. The other guy was not in favor of gay rights at all, and his running mate was mostly interested in stoking racial fears to divide America.
So gays turned out, and we voted for Obama. And it's not just that. We voted for him at extremely high levels all over the country, including in important battleground areas. In most areas, gay support went from in between 70-75 per cent in prior elections to 87 per cent or more of gay voters. That's an enormous shift. And we can't forget that this was an enormous shift despite Donnie McClurkin, despite his not speaking out about Prop. 8, despite his non-support of marriage. Gay people put all those things aside and came out and gave him our strongest support, ever.
—In heavily gay Provincetown, Mass., 87 percent of voters supported Obama, compared to only 11 percent for McCain, and 2 percent for others or no votes. Massachusetts overall voted 62 percent for Obama, and 36 percent for McCain.
—While 61 percent of Californians supported Obama over 37 percent for McCain, 85 percent of heavily gay San Francisco supported Obama—versus 13 percent for McCain and two percent for others.
—Fifty-five percent of voters in Pennsylvania supported Obama over 45 percent for McCain, but in Philadelphia's heavily gay 2nd and 5th wards, 83 percent of voters supported Obama.
—In heavily gay Dupont Circle ( Precinct 15 ) in Washington, D.C., Obama won 89 percent of the vote.
—In the heavily gay precinct 1233 in Dallas, 63 percent of voters supported Obama, while 57 percent of the entire city did so. Fifty-five percent of the state supported McCain.
—Chicago's heavily gay 44th Ward went 86 percent for Obama over 13 percent for McCain.
A poll had predicted 81% voter turnout nationally for Obama. Some might even want to call us a big part of Obama's base. It certainly seems like we helped drive his election efforts up. And how many of these gay voters were younger voters? How many of them joined OFA and other organizing sites and not only voted and donated for him but worked very, very hard to get him elected?
And let's be honest here: did he kick any other groups in the face during the campaign? Did he engage right wing anti-women speakers and suggest that perhaps abortion might be an evil sin? No, he actually ran on eliminating the Stupak amendmentthe Hyde amendment entirely. Did he run against any other part of the Democratic base? Immigrants, blacks, poor people, unions? No he did not. He asked for and got their full support from the beginning.
Not so with us. In fact, if anything, he made tons of huge mistakes worthy of losing our votes:
The same man who's worked hard, even bravely, to bring open but tolerant religiosity to Democratic politics, who ventured into Christian, hard right territory for an AIDS conference at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback church, who underwent a public AIDS test there to help de-stigmatize the disease in black eyes and who surely has heard about the black church's newfound dedication to combatting AIDS - that guy is barnstorming with Donnie McClurkin, gospel star, pastor to the black elite and crusading homophobe? What on earth is he thinking? Like Bill Clinton in his day, Obama is supposed to be the smartest, most intellectual guy in the bunch but this move is dumb as a rock, transparent as Britney Spears' clothes, cynical and desperate. Times are hard for a former super star whose best case scenario now is to argue sloppy staff work.
And yet we still worked hard. We went out of our way to make sure this man became our President. We accepted his stance on marriage. We accepted McClurkin. We accepted Rick Warren. We accepted his talk of "civil unions" as though that's a valid compromise on the right to get married. Time and time again he hurt gay people, and yet it didn't affect our votes nor our action.
And it's no wonder we would want him in office, despite his obvious missteps. Here he is reiterating support for us:
"I'm here with a simple message: I'm here with you in that fight," President Obama told roughly 3,000 attendees of the $250-a-seat black-tie dinner at the Washington Convention Center. "For even as we face extraordinary challenges as a nation, we cannot and we will not put aside issues of basic equality."
The president said that "nobody in America should be fired because they're gay, despite doing a great job and meeting their responsibilities. It's not fair, it's not right. We're going to put a stop to it. And it's for this reason if any of my nominees are attacked not for what they believe but for who they are, I will not waver in my support because I will not waver in my commitment to ending discrimination in all its forms.
"Do not doubt [that’s] the direction we are headed and the destination we will reach," President Obama said. "We have made progress, and we will make more."
ENDA, as you know, is still languishing in Congress while 89% of Americans want it to be passed. But this isn't about what's happening now. This is about how gay people responded to this call. This was him repeating his commitment to us after his election. These are the types of things he said during the campaign and we stood up. We were ready to fight. And we did. We fought with our volunteering hours, our money and our phone calls. We got out the vote and we voted in record numbers for him to win the presidency. We were and are among his base, his biggest supporters, his most reliable voters. As we are with the Democratic Party.
We were and we are a reliably Democratic vote and it'd be great for people to remember that.