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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Obama's Gay Pride Parade from Hell

Richard Socarides: Obama's Choice to Defend DOMA and Its Consequences.

Fix this. Now. We are arriving at Damage Control time at this point. Does the Administration even grasp just how off the rails their serial mis-steps on lgbtq issues are getting?

Frankly, Obama should have to Fast Track ENDA and ending DADT as penance for this evil idiocy (and, yeah, for having that disgusting fucking homophobe deliver the invocation at his Inaugural, too -- I forgave Obama at the time, but I've changed my mind, all things considered).

It was bad enough that Prop H8 pissed in my punchbowl on the glorious day when Obama was elected, but the silence in the face of gay marriage decisions, the endless parade of patriotic Americans still getting booted from service by Don't Ask Don't Tell, the unbelievably bigoted language and surreally bad timing of Administration utterances on these topics are adding insult after insult after insult to lgbtq injuries now.

I know the priority is health care and EFCA, I fully get the necessity of structural change first and expenditures of political capital where they are most necessary and useful, and so on, I'm completely down with grown-up politics for a change, but at this point the Obama Administration is being so clumsy, so tone-deaf, so out-of-touch, so gratuitously complicit in odiousness that their moves aren't even remotely justifiable on pragmatic grounds.

America is no longer the homophobic country Obama appears to be catering to on these questions, embracing our diversity is part of the Change We Believed In when we elected Obama.

On no other topic does Obama seem to me so relentlessly out of touch (whatever my disagreements with him on other areas, accountability for war criminals, bailouts for corporate criminals, still too hawkish foreign policy, and so on) as he does on lgbtq issues.

It's past painful at this point, it's starting to get a little surreal for us queer folks.

[UPDATE: I am very pleased to say now that in the early months of just the third year of Obama's first term, with the gale force winds of relentless queer activism and criticism at his back, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" ceased to be official military policy -- although implementation of this change was exactly speedy or smooth, and also the Obama Justice Department stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act, declaring it unconstitutional by their lights, as proliferating test cases across the Nation nudged it to the edge of a cliff. I must say that in retrospect the only detail in this post that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth is my declaration in it that EFCA was an Administration priority -- if only!]

5 comments:

jimf said...

> Frankly, Obama should have to Fast Track ENDA and
> ending DADT as penance for this evil idiocy (and, yeah,
> for having that disgusting fucking homophobe deliver the
> invocation at his Inaugural, too -- I forgave Obama at the
> time, but I've changed my mind, all things considered). . .
>
> It's past painful at this point, it's starting to get a
> little surreal for us queer folks.

I was wondering when you'd finally get around to admitting that
the current administration is no friend to queers.
(Not, of course, that a Republican one would be any better,
but still. . .)

Don't hold your breath for this administration expending **any**
political capital to abolish DADT.

Dale Carrico said...

You may be right, Jim, but I have to admit to you, completely honestly and probably stupidly, that I simply can't believe it if it's true, if you're right. I can't believe it, I really can't. I do still think this Administration will preside over the dismantlement of DOMA and DADT, and will implement ENDA. I didn't expect it to be a priority over EFCA and the public option, but I expected it year 2-3 with early confidence-inspiring noises and moves to let us know what's in the pipeline, but none of which have -- to put it mildly -- materialized. Indeed, I'm a bit flabbergasted by the way it's been playing out on the lgbtq front so far. My confidence is definitely shaken... and my resolve is definitely stirred. If only my old Queer Nation tee still fit, it's looking like time to start raising hell again.

Dale Carrico said...

I take it back. You were right, Jim, the Administration is signaling that they intend to expend no political capital on lgbtq citizens despite campaign promises and widespread support from the nation and disgusting pointless suffering and injustice involved. Time to "make him do it." Educate, agitate, organize. Again. Fucking assholes.

jimf said...

> the Administration is signaling that they intend to expend no
> political capital. . . despite campaign promises. . .

If you put Obama in a blender, you'd get some mighty fine
motor oil. Nice and slippery.

This is pretty terrifying to me when I bother to think about
it.

Republicans are **principled** all right -- they're elitists,
hawks, minority-haters, and panderers to the fundamentalist
religious bigots.

Democrats can talk a good left-wing line, but where the rubber
hits the road, they're an oil slick.

There are no other choices, in this country.

Anonymous said...

Actually Democrat Gavin Newsom (via Maureen Dowd), said on this issue: “If we didn’t do it in 2004, do you think the party would have wanted us to do it in 2006 during the midterm elections to take back Congress?” he said. “God forbid. 2008? Well, it’s another presidential year. And now people are saying 2010? That’s another critical year to hold Congress, and we’ve got statehouses across the nation. 2012? Another presidential year. 2014? Another Congressional year. Wait does almost always mean never. That was Dr. King’s point.” So whatever you think of his mayoring, I think this quote is spot on for this issue and (not to dilute it) for many other issues that the Democrats don't see fit to act on because, "the time isn't right".