General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: An open letter to folks like myself who cannot in good conscience vote for Obama [View all]Pab Sungenis
(9,612 posts)I don't know whether to laugh or scream.
We've documented here and elsewhere just what we LGBT*.* people have been through with the Obama Administration. From before Obama was even elected until after we lost the House in the 2010 midterms, we endured insult after insult by and on behalf of the President. Our concerns were belittled and we had to endure insults from people like Donnie McClurkin and Rick Warren with Barack Obama's imprimatur on them. He gave us some eyewash like giving a posthumous medal to Harvey Milk to distract us from his Justice Department filing a brief in favor of DOMA which compared our relationships to bestiality and incest. When we had an overwhelming majority in the House and for a brief while a 60 vote majority in the Senate we begged for ENDA and we were told "they invited some lesbians to the Easter Egg roll, what more do you want?" And he replaced the most gay-friendly Justice ever with a woman who says that there is no Constitutional right to marriage, a statement that if it had been made about privacy or abortion would have resulted in her nomination being yanked so quickly that there would have been a sonic boom.
Finally, after 15% of the LGBT*.* vote swung away from the Democrats helping lead to the loss of the House in 2010, some Democrats finally forced the President's hand on Don't Ask Don't Tell, the first real victory for LGBT*.* under his Presidency. Then things started to improve. We were told he was "evolving" on gay marriage but were still told that we should be happy with the back-of-the-bus option of Civil Unions that have been proven not to work. We finally got some real movement on immigration issues. And then he had to go flush all that goodwill by inviting Cardinal Fucking Dolan to close out the Democratic National Convention! That was an insult we definitely didn't need.
That any LGBT*.* person would even think about voting for Obama is a testament to just how bad Romney is as an alternative. That we're voting for him despite all of our problems is one of the best arguments you can make for re-electing the man. We're on your side but don't demand that we be happy about it.