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Update: adding video clips. ~Louise
GetEQUAL protesters have been escorted out of an Obama fundraiser in LA for Barbara Boxer after demanding that he add repeal language in the Defense Authorization. According to press pool reports, at 6:17 Pacific Time, members of GetEqual interrupted the President’s speech to expressing anger over the snail’s pace on DADT repeal and the the stories that the White House doesn’t want a vote in 2010.
The crowd, as you might imagine, was not happy and tried to hush them.
“What about don’t ask, don’t tell?” one protester shouted.
Obama yelled back “we are going to do that.”
The President raised his voice to try to continue over the protesters, with the crowd trying to drown them out by chanting “Yes, we can.”
He later said, “we are going to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell.”
But that wasn’t the end. At 6:22 PM PT, the President was interrupted once again, with shouts of “It’s time for equality for all Americans!”
Obama addressed the activist with “can I just say again Barbara and I are supportive of repealing Don’t ask dont tell.” The GetEqual activists brought the President’s remarks to a halt, with the invited crowd continuing the “yes we cans” and shouts of “be quiet!”
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Good. Make it more painful for them o ignore than to comply.Obviously the president and Congress are feeling the heat from bigots. We need to make it even more painful to continue ignoring equal rights. Make some noise.
Great job, Get Equal!The activists of Get Equal make me proud to be part of the community. I wish them much more success and will try to partcipate the next time they’re in DC (Or near enough).
Also, I find it pretty telling that the activists were being silenced with the phrase “Yes we can.” I feel that the slogan has been used againsts people who want change as much as it has been used for change itself.
“Yes we can!”“But we probably won’t bother.”
Anyone in or near WASH DC on May 2 …. GET EQUAL Planning a DADT EqualityRally.p>Here is facebook link. http://tinyurl.com/y4oeaxa
a suggestion
May I suggest, if something like this happens again, respond to the “Yes We Can” chant with “WHEN?” chanted back at them. Or perhaps “We Can’t Wait!”
or maybeOr instead of just “When?”, they could do “Tell Us When” so that it has the same number of syllables.
BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!
After 15 months of “wait and see,” the spirits of the Stonewallers, Leonard Matlovich, Copy Berg, Perry Watkins, Harvey Milk, Vito Russo, Bruce Voeller, Steve Endean, all the ACT UPers who died of AIDS, Barbara Gittings, and Del Martin and others who can no longer fight for us are alive!
But note what defenders of the antigay status quo the big money ObamaRahmbots have become…even in California. Shameful!
I’ve read that there may be a mass demonstration in front of the White House May 2nd.
Out of the blogs and into the streets!
Oh that’s a shame!With the midterms so close, it’s just such inconvenient timing for headlines like this. Such a pity.
I’ll be there.I’ll be there.
A perfect protester response would have been “WHEN?”We all know he’s for repeal, because he’s said so. The important question is, is it in our lifetimes? This year, Mr. President. This year. Don’t think you can string us along any more.
touche!how sad that the crowd used that slogan to shut down pro-change protesters.
PERFECT
Once a personality cult always a personality cult.
He Mocks Us for Standing Up to Him!?!?“No, he hasn’t!”
^
This should be our response to that fool and his sycophants when they holler “Yes, we can.”
PS. for those who want contact.GETEQUAL's leader tweets as speechadvice (Just found her tonight myself.)
Queerty has CNN’s video up…
He starts paying attention at about the 2:00 mark. He keeps returning to Good Guy, but the RAGE that flickers for a split second in his eyes several times is as chilling as any I’ve ever seen from a Repug.
Yes, Mr. President, Sen. Boxer voted against DADT, even tried to overturn it, but you are NOT!
The days when you can just smile fuck us into silence are OVER!
http://www.queerty.com/get-equ…
Here’s a micro second of the man behind the curtain revealed…
Just like Lyndon Johnson challenged king to MAKE him pass Civil RightsObama will need to be MADE to keep his promises, on ENDA, DADT.
what have you done for me lately…..Janet Jackson
“cuz little things are all you seem to give”
they should have answered yes we can …with the Fierce urgency of NOW
Saw this over on Huff. Post
A man, second from right, yells as President Barack Obama speaks at a fundraiser for the
Democratic National Committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., at the California Science
Center in Los Angeles, Monday, April 19, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The local TV station just *lead* with this storyNBC, San Francisco.
Really nicely done.
Just watch the frothing we’re giving the “progressive” party hacks in the comments: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
How stupid are we being?Yes, President Obama is going slower than we’d like. But we’ve become so accustomed to having everything happen twenty seconds ago, and seen how badly things can be run by idiots like Bush and his cronies, that I’m afraid that we’re going to sour the support that the President is giving us.
Or have you forgotten already that he just gave us hospital visitation?
Do you REALLY want him to snap his fingers (i.e., issue an Executive Order) and make DADT go away? Then what? Return to what was there before? That sounds brilliant. No, we need him to get his ducks in a row, get new rules and regulations put into place so that when DADT does go away, then LGBT folk can serve with honor and dignity.
Life doesn’t need to rush along at this break-neck speed, grabbing and throwing things willy-nilly. It’s time to stop the water balloon fight (or feces throwing battle) and start playing chess by mail. We need to work WITH the President.
Stop and think: how would YOU feel if you were trying to work something intricate out to benefit others, and had all this vitriol and anger thrown at you by the very people you were trying to help? I would get very pissed off and might reconsider my assistance.
GetEqual activists interrupt GetEQUAL protesters have been escorted out of an Obama fundraiser in LA for Barbara Boxer after demanding that he add repeal language in the Defense Authorization. According to press pool reports, at 6:17 Pacific Time, members of GetEqual interrupted
Pro Cleanse
Let me guess … “Have patience” “It’s only been x months/years” “He has other problems to fix”yada, yada, yada.
To wait means never.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Ar…
‘This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”‘
You forgot to mention the pony n/t
It’s more like “Yes, we could …”
Put down the Kool Aid…or get the hell out of the way!
Reconsider WHAT assistance?
Do you mean all those DOJ legal briefs defending DOMA and DADT by claiming that gays and lesbians have no meaningful constitutional right?
Do you mean that DADT survey of military families that is designed to whip up opposition yo DADT repeal, so the White House can claim that there just was too much opposition to repeal DADT?
I want the President to stop lying to the gay community about supporting DADT repeal while secretly telling congressional Democrats to kill the repeal.
Wake the hell up! If DADT is not repealed this year, it won’t be repealed for another decade, because the Democrats are about to lose their big majorities in Congress, majorities that this administration has completely and utterly squandered.
“Sappha” got her ObamaRahm Borg Talking Points early this morning….
YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DO! And as someone who has been involved in fighting the ban for 35 years, who was a personal friend of the late Leonard Matlovich, the first servicemember to out himself to fight the ban, and a friend of many others who have sacrificed their careers to do the same thing, including Dan Choi, I say:
SHAME ON YOU! Shame on you for turning on your gay brothers and sisters simply to defend the straight leader of your personality cult! Shame on you for saying, “So sorry, but Massa can’t free you yet. You have to just keep getting discharged day after day after day, joining the other unemployed, because he’s not ready yet. Taking a pen and writing: ‘Stop discharges now! Discrimination will not be tolerated’ takes YEARS!”
“Ducks in a row”? There’s the obvious ObamaRahm Borg Talking Point one sees everywhere like cockroach droppings. Put down the Kool Aid and step away from their clown car. Read my lips, “Sappha”! And those of DADT expert Dr. Nathaniel Frank: “It’s not rocket science.”
Read last month’s Center for American Progress study:
All of the 25 countries that have lifted their ban studied recently by the Palm Center completed their implementations of repeal either immediately or within four months!
Under that worst case scenario, if our Commander-in-Chief had had the courage to sign an Executive Order the day he was sworn in, discharges would have stopped nearly a year ago, and hundreds of gays discharged since then would still be helping protect our country, 4000 would not have refused to reenlist because they were tired of living a lie, and tens of thousands more would no longer be serving in silence.
When SECDEF Gates recently announced the changes to the way DADT is implemented, he ordered that they take effect immediately, and gave subordinates just 30 days to make their paperwork match the policy.
When President Clinton ordered in 1993 that the military could no longer ask, recruiters didn’t stop recruiting simply because their forms were suddenly out of date. They simply took a pen and marked out the question about homosexuality.
“trying to help…I would get very pissed off and might reconsider my assistance”???? EARTH TO SAPPHA: He works for us! We hired him after he applied for the job promising he’d quickly end DADT.
But because we are kind, patient people, we have been “working with the President” far longer than the 15 months he’s been in office. Members of SLDN met with his official transition team long before his inauguration and explained to them, step-by-step, how to get rid of DADT and replace it with a policy of nondiscrimination.
That is “shovel ready.” The military already has a gigantic apparatus of polices and programs enforcing non-discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and political affiliation from the highest office in the Pentagon to the most far flung military post around the world.
All they have to do is add “sexual orientation.”
And all you have to do is stop embracing the man who is betraying us simply because he wrongly believes we are a political liability and doesn’t have the courage to be the “leader” he explicity promised to be when he said, “Join with me!”
Amen, Brother!
Says it all: “…he just gave us hospital visitation”He GAVE us hospital visitation?!!! Quite frankly – bullsh*t. That is the biggest problem with your comment. Our rights are not granted by the majority, they are inalienable and we are being deprived of them by the unConstitutional whims of the bigots in our society.
Unfortunately Obama and the rest of the Democratic establishment still operate under the assumption that they are in the position to give us our rights, and that is wrong. The DADT and DOMA defenses both come from this perspective – while the administration is against both laws, discrimination against LGBT human beings is totally Constitutional. Their refusal to fight against the referenda in state after state (and I don’t mean fighting for the “correct” side, I mean allowing the votes to happen at all) is another example of their thinking.
That begs the question, what other of our rights are subject to the whim of the majority? Can our rights to free speech be ended by referendum? Can our rights to assemble, to vote, to participate in society be done away with by legislative fiat?
Either we are full human beings with all human rights, or we have no rights whatsoever and our society can go back to rounding us up and incarcerating us (or worse – like in Uganda). There is no middle ground. It is time we demand to know where our “leaders” stand on our humanity.
… but no, we won’t.” n/t
My question is this….Why wasn’t this done to Bill Clinton?
LOL, I know its crazyBut I am just gonna post here before I read the rest of the comments. Obama is very much my President and he doesn’t even have to campaign for my vote. I am gonna support him in 2012 regardless!! But I will say this much, you can’t tell us you understand and that you can’t tell us to wait and then when the hecklers show up get upset and want to try and tell us to wait. LOL, I love you Barrack but you knew the job was dangerous when you took it and when your crew told you to delay and it won’t matter much they where dead wrong! You are a good President but you got some baaad advice!
I see I’ve answered my own question.The LGBT community has decided to be VERY stupid, and attack the one person in high office who wants to help.
Have you people considered that the DOJ briefs were done by BushCo people, appointed years ago? I’m betting they didn’t run their choice to defend DOMA and DADT up the ladder to see if it was okay. So yeah, President Obama didn’t slap it down when he found out about it. Guess what? There’s a little thing called “separation of powers” which means he doesn’t get to control the DOJ, or the legislature, either! We’ve had so many Rethuglican presidents who tried to run roughshod over the process that we expect Obama to do that too.
Except he is a constitutional EXPERT and knows he’s not supposed to do that.
I’m not advocating waiting forever. And I seriously doubt that we’re going to lose our majority in Congress this year. I believe that we should keep the pressure on President Obama, but make it POSITIVE pressure, not negative. Give him to the end of his first term (hoping for a second term here), and if he hasn’t gotten DOMA and DADT gone by the first quarter of his last year, THEN go after him.
You people liked my advice when I was writing to a trans sister who was having difficulty with her birth family. I’m asking you to consider it now.
Becca
Correction: One of many people in high office who CLAIM they want to help but offer only wordsMouthing platitudes and offering vague promises is not help. If he really is a “fierce advocate,” then he should start acting like one.
If he were dealing only with this..…issue, then I’d agree. But he has some other, bigger alligators nipping at him as well. The economy, which BushCo trashed. Two intractable wars inflicted on us by BushCo. The environment.
We have made great strides in the last ten years. We have been highly vocal against our detractors and our leaders. Now we have a leader who is moving in the right direction for us – albeit at a glacial pace, but still forward.
Is it really in our best interest to behave badly towards a person who is on our side?
Becca
None of this, in any way, prevents him from actually DOING something about DADTHe could:
1. Publicly instruct Congress that he wants to see a repeal of DADT on his desk. Lots of Presidents have made similar public requests.
2. Stop expulsions under DADT by issuing a stop/loss directive.
3. Stop defending DADT in federal court. At the very least, stop filing legal briefs that make aggressive use of homophobic bigotry.
4. Do not take fascist steps like closing public parks to prevent media coverage of protests against DADT.
5. Instruct his spokesman to say, clearly and on the record, that concrete, verifiable proof is being made towards a repeal of DADT rather than let him equivocate, skirt and outright lie.
6. Acknowledge, clearly and on the record, that GetEQUAL and similar groups are justified in their anger about DADT and offer a clear plan for repeal, rather than just mouthing the same old platitudes and empty lies that he has been mouthing for two years.
NONE of this would distract him from the “bigger allegators” (as if human dignity and civil rights were something that can casually be brushed aside.)
In other words…“Four legs good! Two legs better!”
And nobody is able to answer MY question…I agree with what’s going on-we NEED to put Obama’s feet to the fire. BUT-why wasn’t this done to Bill Clinton? Or Hillary? DADT is not Obama’s fault-it’s HILLARY and BILL’S fault. So, why heckle Obama if you’re not willing to do that to the Clintons?
I’ll take thismaybe we should have (and some gay folks did heckle Clinton) but also remember that this was a generation ago. Our community was coming out of the worst of the AIDS crisis (not that it still isn’t bad for some)…
Bill Clinton was the first that gave any gays fawning attention and…remember also, DADT was pitched by some as a fair compromise.
But still, homophobia was much worse then than it is now: we weren’t talking about marriage rights when Clinton first took office.
And a lot of the flack that Obama is catching is due to the fact that we did not do this to Bill Clinton…
Thank you, Kevin…I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be protesting. YES WE SHOULD. It’s high damn time we started raising hell again. And you’re right-the grand majority of the flack Obama’s catching is because we got lulled into complacency by Clinton’s lies. And Hillary would be pulling the same shit had she won. That said, I think this is a good thing. Yes, I support Obama, but I also understand Obama is a POLITICIAN. He’s not gonna do anything if he isn’t pressured to do it. Period. That’s why I support Obama AND the protesters.
Also…If these protesters are serious (and I know Autumn is) then they should be willing to heckle Clinton instead of kiss his lying ass.
Oh, Clinton has been “heckled”…remember?
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