Mildred Jeter Loving has passed away.

You may have never heard of her, but she and her husband left their mark on this country in the struggle for equality during the Civil Rights Movement. In June of 1958 the then 18 year old Mildred Jeter did something controversial. She did something that sent reverberations down through the years and is written in the some history books. She did something illegal. She said "I do."

Two events this week involving Obama further bring into question whether his support for the GLBT community are mere words designed only to further his political aspirations or whether they are a true reflection of what he intends or will do. The two events in question are Obama's response to a question in the recent Ohio debate regarding support from Louis Farrakhan and the release a few days later of an open letter to the GLBT community. Taking a look at the two events together may seem odd, but they actually lead to a interesting comparison.

All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. ...[S]egregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful.

These words were written in a letter by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963. Dr. King spent most of his adult life fighting against the injustices wrought by segregation.

And yet now almost 40 years after the tragic assassination of Dr. King, we are in the midst of the ascendency of a new segregationist platform within the Democratic Party. A segregationist platform supported by all three of the remaining major Democratic candidates for President and only opposed by two of the candidates. This movement is exceedingly dangerous as it once again calls into serious question the morality of the Democratic Party and the promise the party has made such as the statement from the 2004 party platform that "each of us should be as equal in the eyes of the law as we are in the eyes of God."

Growing up, when a black child is confronted with racial bigotry and discrimination and needs a sympathetic shoulder to cry on or sympathetic voice to give them support and comfort, the child generally has a parent they can turn to. Most black children have atleast one black parent, a parent that likely suffered from the same bigotry and discrimination, if not worse. Likewise, a Jewish child confronted with religious bigotry and discrimination generally has a Jewish parent to whom they can turn to. For the gay child however, this generally is not the case. A gay child generally does not have a gay parent that has has similar experiences facing the same type of bigotry and discrimination. Indeed, the gay child may well face bigotry and discrimination from their own parents if their sexuality is revealed.

When I first heard that sentiment expressed many years ago, it was like being hit by a ton of bricks. I wish I could remember exact wording of how it was said. I don't even remember who said it, though I believe it was either Ellen Degeneres or her mother Betty. It is this lack of a natural support mechanism that makes surviving childhood difficult for so many gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered.

I am a democrat, or more precisely a social democrat (little "s", little "d"), but since the summer of 2000 I have not been a Democrat. While my membership did not officially lapse until the spring of 2002 by my conscious failure to vote in the Texas Democratic primary, my decision to leave was made that summer watching the miserable implosion of the party into which I was raised into nothing more than a blob of spineless, timorous and equivocating double talk, virtually void of the fundamental values epitomized by two of the great but decedent lions of the party, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, and apparently unwilling or unable to take up the great mantle of their legacy. In the seven ensuing years, I have proudly worn the label of being an independent, ashamed of the Democratic Party, all the while hoping the party would take up the gauntlet and restore my faith in its ability to lead and lead with conviction. My hope of a return in 2004 was dashed by the defeat and mockery of Howard Dean in the Democratic Presidential primaries and my resolve only hardened by cynicism and doubt of Democratic claims of leadership ability in the 2006 election cycle.