What’s in it for the gays?
From The Stranger’s Dan Savage:
“CIVIL RIGHTS” is the first category in “The Agenda” section of Obama’s website—excuse me, the White House’s website (!)—and more than half of the items listed fall under the subcategory “Support for the LGBT Community.” The fact that Obama’s agenda for LGBT equality is filed under plain old “Civil Rights” and not “Gay Rights” or some other category will not only annoy the Rick Warrens of the world…but it demonstrates that Obama believes that the struggle for gay and lesbian equality is the civil rights struggle of our time.
Besides combating/preventing HIV the main tasks Obama lists include:
1) Federal jurisdiction for violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation.
2) Federal ban of employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (Such as ENDA-The Employment Non-Discrimination Act)
3) Repeal DOMA the Defense of Marriage Act and provide 1,100+ federal legal rights to civil unions. Oppose the proposed Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage.
4) Retain the nation’s language experts in the military (and other gays and lesbians) by repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
5) Adoption Rights for all regardless of their sexual orientation.
The White House Civil Rights Agenda can be found here.
Given the facts that Obama has already broken important promises on FISA and that he has refused to appoint even on openly lgbt cabinet member, there is no way that the queer community can trust Obama, no matter what the White House website says. If we want any progress on our issues during the next four years, we will have to fight very hard for it, and Barack Obama will be fighting hard to keep it from happening.
Why are we so convinced that Obama will be good to us when his actions thus far prove the opposite? He was a supporter of marriage equality, then decided to go right wing and come out against equal rights. Now he’s using the argument of segregationists by saying its a states rights issue. The first voice we heard at his inauguration was an anti-gay, anti-abortion bigot (of all the pastors in the country, he chose one whose views contradict the millions of people who voted for change?). His choice of token gay bishop was censored from television viewing. So far, this doesn’t sound a bit like change. If Eisenhower could bar gays and lesbians from federal employment by executive order, why can’t Obama be asked to repeal DOMA by executive order? We should definitely NOT be making excuses for yet another politicians to break his promises.