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No one in their right minds would want to turn over the House to the Republicans. I haven’t a clue why some believe that public criticism from the LGBT community of the White House, Congress and our advocacy organizations is going to tank the midterms or suppress the LGBT vote. I thought we were such a small portion of the electorate that it wouldn’t matter, right?
Non-performance, a lack of transparency, and broken promises cause depressed turnout. The Get Equal video stings because it tells the truth. We are in this predicament because of spinelessness, a disease we thought would be eradicated with “hope,” “change,” and “leadership.” What a concept.
Andrew Sullivan, who was also an Obama booster at one time, says it all with “Gays, The Battered Wife Of The Democratic Party: Dissents” as he takes on mail disagreeing with his position that we just keep coming back for more letdowns, begging for cash, and the legislative beatdowns and lying cover stories for abandoning promises.
[T]he Human Rights Campaign’s Number One item – the thing they postponed DADT repeal for – has resulted in no actual prosecutions in the year since it was passed.Meanwhile, gay servicemembers are still being routinely fired by president Obama, and still live under the threat of persecution merely for not lying. And do you not think that a government that itself allows harassment and threats against gay people has no moral standing to prosecute private citizens for doing the same thing? If Obama opposes persecuting gay people for being gay, he should start with himself as commander in chief. He has discriminated against more gay people in the last year than any single private individual or company in the land. There are no excuses. And his cowardice may mean years more persecution for gay servicemembers. If the House goes Republican this fall, as seems very likely, and it it is jammed with Christianists, as seems even likelier, this critical window could be lost for another decade.
And that’s why it was important to get things rolling in the first two years. But no, the apologists told him to give him time, we’ll get to that later. None of the “smart people” seemed to believe that Congress could possibly be in jeopardy. Well it’s later and look at the political slaughter we’re facing at the mid-terms.
And if you take a look at the accomplishments, something we always cover on the Blend, most are not what Barack Obama campaigned on, nor are they permanent fixes, only Cinderella Crumbs. A reminder and breakdown of the utility of the accomplishments so far is below the fold.
Blender QueerInSoCal broke down the list of 35 items that DNC treasurer Andrew Tobias considers accomplishments by this administration:
It’s not 35 items, particularly if you discount the one blatant lie:
Dispatched the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to call on the Senate to repeal Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell, in the meantime dialing back on dischargesActively agitated against successful repeal of DADT, substituting a compromise bill with no definitive end, and no provision for interim reduction/elimination of discharges under DADT.
Categorizing the balance of the “items”…
Substantial impact, easily reversed:
Instructed HHS to require any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds to allow LGBT visitation rights. *
Adopted transgender recommendations on the issuance of gender-appropriate passports
Extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover employees taking unpaid leave to care for the children of same-sex partnersBroad but minimal impact, easily reversed:
Committed to ensuring that HUD’s core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identityNarrowly targeted and minimal impact:
Conceived a National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders funded by a three-year HHS grant to SAGE
Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees in 2009 and, further, in 2010
Lifted the HIV Entry Ban effective January 2010
Issued diplomatic passports, and provided other benefits, to the partners of same-sex foreign service employeesSubstantial impact on a tiny portion of LGBTs (sometimes as little as one person):
Appointed the first ever transgender DNC member
Sworn in Ambassador David Huebner
Named open transgender appointees
Banned job discrimination based on gender identity throughout the Federal government
Extended domestic violence protections to LGBT victimsNothing more than lifting a pen – Congress did the actual work:
Signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act
Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention ActHow is this related to LGBT?
Appointed Sonia Sotomayor and nominated Elena Kagan
Appointed long-time equality champion Chai Feldblum one of the four Commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Appointed Retired Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, an early public champion of open service in the military, to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services**
Required all grant applicants seeking HUD funding to comply with state and local anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT individuals.Finally we get to the biggest category…
Window dressing with no measurable impact:
Reversed an inexcusable US position by signing the UN Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Endorsed the Baldwin-Lieberman bill, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, to provide FULL partnership benefits to federal employees
Released the first Presidential PRIDE proclamations since 2000
Hosted the first LGBT Pride Month Celebration in White House history
Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King
Testified in favor of ENDA, the first time any official of any administration has testified in the Senate on ENDA
Changed the culture of government everywhere from – among others – HUD and HHS to the Export-Import Bank, the State Department, and the Department of Education (“changed the culture? Really? How about that DOJ filing on DOMA?)
Emphasized LGBT inclusion in everything from [yada, yada, yada]
Recommitted, in a televised address, to passing ENDA . . . repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell . . . repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act
Spoken out against discrimination at the National Prayer Breakfast
Launched a website to gather public comment on first-ever federal LGBT housing discrimination study
Eliminated the discriminatory Census Bureau policy that kept our relationships from being counted
Produced U.S. Census Bureau PSAs featuring gay, lesbian, and transgender spokespersons.
Publicly invited shunned MIssissippi high school prom student to the White House* – I expect to see a flurry of lawsuits after hospitals deny visitation anyway.
** – Wouldn’t it have made more sense – not to mention been more productive – to have named her to the commission studying the end of DADT? Since, you know, that’s what she’s known for.
This administration has been big on empty promises, and short on action.
Is this the list of items you voted for? It’s not zero progress, but it’s the big ticket items that are sorely needed and do not exist now – DADT, DOMA, ENDA, UAFA.
15 Comments
It’s rare for me to agree with Andrew Sullivan(I’m still furious about his “AIDS is over screed in the Times Magazine a few years back), but he is absolutely dead-on with this. The posting says it all; between Sullivan’s comments and QueerinSoCal nothing needs to be added.
Give him time?I remember right from the beginning, we heard that he needed more time, he’s busy, the country’s a mess, and then six months later ditto, then a year.
He didn’t need time, he needed BALLS. He could have closed Gitmo, stopped dismissals from the military saying both are WRONG and we’ll work out the details later. You didn’t have to be a political junkie to know that he had the power and influence at the beginning, he had the country behind him.
Gitmo and DADT were the canaries in the mine and they croaked real early in his term.
I don’t understandhow the DNC can fail to realize they did this to themselves.
If I hire a contractor, I expect the work for which he was contracted to be complete.
If I hire an employee, I expect the job for which he was hired to be done.
If I elect a politician, I expect the policies on which he campaigned to be implemented.
If my expectations aren’t met, I find a new contractor, I find a new employee, and I find a new politician. This is not rocket science.
What Sully says is obviousWhat Sully says is completely obvious. But he provides no solution at all. Once Boehner becomes Speaker of the House we are totally screwed. Sully has in the past sung the praises of Bush, Cheney, and Log Cabin Republicans. They all had ZERO effect on changing the GOP “from the inside”. Remember, back during the 90′s, Sully bragged of knowing many closeted staffers working for Bush. Before that he fiercely defended closeted Pentagon Spokesman Pete Williams and was furious at those who outed him. There is no question that Sully even had a close friendship with Ken Mehlman and the ‘Austin 12′. So what was Sully doing all those years to change the GOP?
But Andrew Sullivan is a RepublicanEvery time I hear Republicans say stuff like”You ought to show the Democrats you aren’t going to be taken for granted” I stop and remember.
Wait a second aren’t you people the ones with the all white conventions and the history of voter suppression? The people with the history of gerrymandering to suppress the votes of people of color? The voter roll chicanery?
Shoot we might not have had Nixon and might have had an effective War on Poverty if we had held our noses and voted for HHH instead of punishing the Democrats in 1968.
It wasn’t like Nixon ended the war in Vietnam any sooner.
And it isn’t like there has ever been a Republican who has been a friend of the working people, people of color or LGBT/T people.
Hell no. I don’t give a damn if the Democratic candidate is a broken down yellow dog that smells bad just so long as that broken down stinky yellow dog votes with the party for the Democratic party.
Shoot even a blue dog is sort of better than a Republican’t just so long as that Blue Dog votes with us once in a while.
Solution?Why should it be necessary for him to have a solution? Are you seriously suggesting that no one should talk about what’s wrong unless they have an airtight solution to it? You can know your plumbing’s not working right without knowing how to repair it.
That’s like sayingyou don’t mind having your house burglarized as long as the burglar doesn’t set fire to it.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans is the difference between pancreatic and vaginal cancer.
ActuallyIt’s more like saying I’d rather have some one do nothing for me than have someone actively advocate I be murdered as per Biblical law.
Given the choice I prefer benign neglect.
Further the Republicans are engaged in the active rape of the working class. Now I know Sully is part of the privileged white male elite who doesn’t have to worry about job security but I’m working class and I don’t like how the republicans mess with working people.
“Andrew Sullivan, who was also an Obama booster at one time…”I prefer:
“Andrew Sullivan, who has always licked the feet of whoever was on top and whose political courage changes direction with every gust of the populist wind…”
It’s not as concise, but it is more illuminating. And Sullivan is not only a coward, a hypocrite and would be a sell-out if he had any convictions to sell out, he’s also a political moron that reasonable people never listened to before he thoroughly disgraced himself, let alone now.
If you thinkwhat we’re getting from Obama and his party is mere neglect, go right on dreaming.
Really?I am fairly impressed with what the Democrats have been able to accomplish in the face of Republican hatred and bigotry.
Looks like their obstructionism is going to back fire and the Bush tax Increases are going to go into effect for every one instead of just the super rich.
Any adequate response would be a TOS violation.
What?“Are you seriously suggesting that no one should talk about what’s wrong unless they have an airtight solution to it?”
I said no such thing. Are you saying that we can support and cheerlead homophobic Republicans into office and then complain that ‘The Evil Demcrat Party’ is homophobic for allowing us to do it?
When you see anyone on this site“support and cheerlead homophobic Republicans into office,” let me know.