Gay groups grow impatient with Barack Obama

[ruggerson]

President Barack Obama’s promises of change are falling short for one core Democratic constituency: gays and lesbians, whose leaders say Obama’s administration isn’t keeping up with the times.

Gay rights campaigners, most of them Democrats who supported Obama in November, have begun to voice their public frustration with Obama’s inaction, small jokes at their community’s expense and deafening silence on what they see as the signal civil rights issue of this era.

His most important campaign promises repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and the military ban on openly gay and lesbian service-members have not been fulfilled.

And the news, which emerged quietly earlier this year, that he’d supported same-sex marriage back in 1996, then changed his mind, especially rankles. As mainstream Democratic politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) move to support same-sex marriage, gay rights advocates say that the barrier-breaking president looks increasingly odd for opposing what they see as full equality.

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[lightningandsnow]

1. I'm getting impatient with him myself.

He needs to get moving on this stuff.

[donco6]

2. Everyone I know worked their butt off for him.

We don't deserve to be joked about. It's hurtful. And it just makes me wonder if we haven't been taken for a ride all along.

[OhioChick]

3. I feel for you, as well as for the gay community.

:hug:

K&R

[Ocracoker16]

4. I feel for you guys

Obama has been totally unfaithful to his promises. I know many gay peple who worked on his campaign who feel like he has turned his back on them. I thought surely he could get rid of DADT fairly easily and rather quickly. The problem isn't only that there are things that get in the way of repealing DADT. The problem is that Obama hasn't made any real effort to get DADT repealed. People thought that Obama would stand up to the military on behalf of gay individuals, but it seems that Obama has decided that he won't benefit politically from it so he isn't going to do anything about DADT.

[dusmcj]

5. its an outdated concept of courting the center plus pandering to conservatives in the Dem electorate

the administration has some choices to make and maybe relationships to break in the realm of conservative sectors of the African-American community, as well as other demographics in the Dem voting bloc outside the 'progressive' camp. If you think that New Deal old-immigrant ethnic conservatives (read: Irish, Italian and Slavic, and frequently Catholic) not to speak of bible-based African Americans, or Hispanics, aren't tuned in to an orthodox program of clearly defined gender-role differentiation (the same status quo which 'progressives' blame for sexual op/repression) then you haven't been paying attention. Work to do, choices to make, consequences to take. How big is the tent before we let in people who defecate on the furniture, bash us, and prevent our principles from being implemented ?

I'm a liberty-oriented het BTW who finds that the sources of my problems are the same as those of most demographics, including LGBTQ, who aren't bought in to the socioeconomic status quo.

[HughMoran]

6. I feel like he's most concerned with being a 2-term President

I get the feeling that some of the more risky political decisions will be made right after his reelection. I'm not saying this is right, just that this is my intuition.

[solstice]

7. This is one of my major problems with Obama, and why I no longer trust him about anything.

[EFerrari]

8. K&R

[dickthegrouch]

9. I know it's not enough, but this is a MAJOR start....

To some it may be just words, but they are the first Presidential words in 233 years of independence.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-LGBT-Pride-Month/

I still intend Marching on Washington on October 10th 2009, just to make sure these become more than words. That is our challenge now, all of us.

[ruggerson]

11. yep

everyone needs to be in DC this fall

[RufusTFirefly]

10. Gay issue. Doesn't concern me

:sarcasm:

It amazes me how some people can compartmentalize the fact that a politician is jerking around or double-crossing one group merely because they don't happen to be a member of that particular group. Paging Father Niemoller!

I once had a friend who was a pathological liar. Despite his assurances that he "wouldn't do that" to me, I was always on guard. And with good reason.

[QC]

12. kick!

:kick:

[noiretextatique]

13. obama needs to keep the promises he made

but, can anyone tell me of a more gay-friendly president...ever? i don't know of one.