After 37 years of proudly towing and promoting the party line I am no longer a registered democrat. I will no longer pull the lever for the generic democrat in a race, not knowing if they are in favor of granting me status of fully equal human being. I will not give another cent to the campaign of ANY candidate that does not support my ascension to the status of fully human with all the rights and privileges that goes with said status. That includes our sitting President unless he decides to embrace full marriage equality. I will not give another cent to any umbrella organization for the election of generic Democrats. I have my line in the sand. Where is yours?
They take us for granted. Does absence make the heart grow fonder? How far are you willing to go to see? Hmmm... We have our 'good cops' in the HRC sucking up to the DC power brokers. Shall we blogger/activists take the role of bad cop and tell the party to either lead and deliver or fuck off?
Are our pleas for full and uncompromised equality falling on deaf or indifferent ears? Last week's diary gave you my opinion. Most of our regulars here shared that opinion. So now what? The White House will undoubtedly prevail in not including the DADT Repeal plank in the DOD Authorization bill and gay and lesbian soldiers will continue to be discharged for utter lack of political courage and moral rectitude by the Administration and Congress. ENDA will not be addressed because the Democrats will undoubtedly pay more heed to the US Chamber of Commerce than GLBT Democrats, and we all know what a solid record the Chamber of Commerce has of supporting the Democrats and Democratic priorities over the years. And of course DOMA will stay on the books because after all, even the President has stated unambiguously that our relationships are not worthy of being called marriage. Again I'll state- the utter lack of urgency on issues of GLBT Human Rights in the US by this Administration and by Congress and by this political party disgusts me.
Many of us busted our asses to get the Democrats the magic 60 seat majority in the senate and we have been back-burnered and ignored and even arrested for our efforts. So now what? Where do we go from here?
For decades I made it a habit to ridicule the Log Cabin folks for associating with the haters and homophobes and embracing the GOP. I will continue to ridicule them for their support of GOP positions on just about every issue but now am having second thoughts on the outreach they do to the other political party. The last major player on the national stage as a socially liberal Republican was William Weld and I proudly voted for him against the Blue Dog Democrat running for Massachusetts Governor. Weld did as much if not more to help promote GLBT equality in Massachusetts as any sitting governor anywhere in the US. And anyone who helped annoy Jessie Helms in his latter years is A-okay in my book! If we successfully decouple our 5-8% GLBT voters in the US from the Democratic Party will our GLBT-equality agenda be acted upon with more haste and diligence in the future, knowing that our support at the ballot box comes with that proviso? Will a warning shot across the bow of the USS Democrat in November be enough to have them take our full equality in all matters of governance a bit more seriously? The House Progressive Caucus consistently made motions to stand up to the Administration's caving to Blue Dog demands these past 18 months but the progressive caucus caved when the pressure was turned up by the White House, like we all knew they would. Was this because they are inside the party looking out? Do the bit players like Senators Sanders and Lieberman, on the outside looking in, actually hold stronger hands when it comes to forcing an agenda? All I'm certain of is that playing good little democrats and busting our asses to get solid majorities in both the House and Senate got us some pretty window dressing but not much substantial change we can believe in.
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We touched on reorganizing the series briefly last week. This week I'm requesting volunteers to cover major GLBT issues and write weekly/regular blurbs on any recent news for said topics, DADT, DOMA, ENDA, Immigration Reform, Hate Crimes, Religious News regarding our community- both good and bad, International News, Transgender News. Anything I'm leaving out? Maybe someone to keep tabs of the large GLBT blogs for info not yet shared on Daily Kos? (Pam, Joe, Andy, David Mixner, Andrew Sullivan, John Avarosis?) We have sufficient expertise in many of these fields where I'd think we could have excellent coverage of most of these topics on a regular if not weekly basis. Who would like to volunteer for which topic? Even if it's merely rehashing a diary you have published from your own account or writing a couple sentences on a news item and supplying a link. Volunteers? The GLBT and Friends at Daily Kos blog roll along the side here has a number of useful links to aid in this endeavor.
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Have you signed our petition to encourage the World Cup organizers to honor Eudy Simelane and all of the South African women who have suffered "corrective rape" at the hands of homophobic thugs? The 2010 FIFA World Cup is being held in South Africa and Eudy was raped and murdered in part for her love of the game of soccer/football and in part for her living an open life as a lesbian. We're only at 131 signers to date. PLEASE take a second and add your voice!