Blind Prophecy

Yesterday’s post about the frustration and anger felt by the queer community at the lack of progress on civil rights has generated an unusually high level of traffic for my blog. Unfortunately, as urgent as I think queer rights legislation is, I’m simply not as angry with the President as many LGBT people.

I’m not an Obama apologist. I’m just not that guy who lets someone off the hook for bad decisions on LGBT issues. I’m still boycotting Coors. And don’t you dare ask me to donate to the HRC.

And yet, the thoughtful analysis of the DOJ brief I’ve read has me convinced that the Obama administration didn’t call me a child rapist. Did the DOJ brief go too far in defending a noxious and unforgivable law from the Clinton administration? Probably. Did it compare same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia? No.

Similarly, has Obama made mistakes with the queer community? Absolutely. From Rick Warren at the Inauguration to his silence on marriage equality; from his failure to move on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to his administration’s tendency toward secrecy on timelines and strategies for achieving the LGBT-rights related campaign pledges. None of these are things I’m willing to die on the sword over.

But, Obama has also done some good things. He has appointed gay and lesbian folks to important and high-ranking government positions. He has extended domestic partner benefits for some federal employees. He issued a fantastic proclamation for Pride Month (becoming the first president to mention bisexual and transgender people). Just today, the White House began pushing to count legal same-sex marriages on the 2010 census.

Yes, I called these things crumbs yesterday, but they are tasty crumbs. Perhaps I’ll make a casserole.

My anger and frustration isn’t so much pointed at the figurehead of Obama, but rather at the liberal leadership of this country as a whole.

I don’t measure progress by the five months since Obama took office, but in the 39 years, 11 months, and 23 days since Stonewall. Under that standard, the federal government has failed to do anything worth celebrating.

It’s not just that Obama has done too little, it’s that the Federal government has yet to pass a single piece of anti-discrimination legislation for LGBT people in the 35 years, 1 month, and 6 days since Reps. Abzurg and Koch introduced the first queer nondiscrimination bill in Congress.

I’m not upset because the Obama administration hasn’t explained why they haven’t ended the ban on HIV-positive immigrants since the Bush Administration first announced that officials would be looking to revise the law, but because 29 years, 1 month, and 27 days (and an estimated 583,298 deaths) after the first reported case of AIDS in the United States we still have laws that stigmatize people with HIV.

I am upset that Obama has avoided taking on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but I’m more upset that there are still people who are afraid to dismantle an offensive and blatantly bigoted policy 16 years, 4 months, and 22 days after it was signed into law as a “compromise” by a Democratic President with a Democrat majority in Congress.

I am upset that the President and most high-ranking Democrats don’t support marriage equality, despite the recent and many advances in this area, but I’m more upset that no one in either the executive or legislative branch seems to have any concrete and real plan to repeal one of the most offensive pieces of U.S. law since the era of Jim Crow in the 12 years, 8 months, and 30 days we have lived under the toxic Defense of Marriage Act.

So, yes, I’m boycotting the Democratic National Committee. I’m not donating time or money to any candidate for any office who doesn’t stand for immediate and complete legal equality for LGBT people. Nor will I vote for any incumbent who hasn’t taken direct action to achieve that end. I will not choose the lesser of two evils, I will choose to vote my conscience.

It’s not Obama and his promises, it’s about the history of a movement that extends back beyond my birth.

I still support the President on health care, the economy, judicial appointments. I still disagree with the President on torture prosecutions, the war in Afghanistan, domestic surveillance and privacy, and transparency backpedaling.

So I won’t be jumping on the big homo bandwagon that is ruing the day they ever supported or voted for Obama. I’m not interested in burning him in effigy. I am interested in continued pressure to act and move forward in larger and more significant ways.

ETA: I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to make the queer rights movement all about Obama. There are plenty of leaders who need to be held accountable, and placing the blame of every delay or disappointment at his feet is neither fair nor helpful.

Filed under: politics, queer rights by Jere Keys