To LGBT DUers: Just something to consider and I would like to know your opinion after reading it.

[tom_paine]

First, a little background. I am a straight long-time DUer who has never really spent much time in the LGBT forum and usually stayed away from LGBT topics, except when I have felt very strongly about something in particular to voice my support for LGBT issues.

I would never have had the confidence to post here (without my flame retardant undies, anyway) because this is an intense and "bare-knuckle" forum with many passionate people who pull no rhetorical punches and stand strong in their beliefs. I happen to like that attitude, so maybe it's a wonder I haven't come down here much.

But I digress, my point is that recently, a few very nice LGBT DUers have said some very nice things to me, about how I never try to judge LGBTs or tell LGBTs to be quiet or not be upset when you have a perfect right to be. I just stand with you in quiet but firm support and I hope understanding, too.

Nobody chose to be gay anymore than I chose to be straight. It just happend one day, at puberty. I am certain that gay people can't "turn straight" any more than I could convince myself to start getting attracted to hairy tuchuses if I so chose.

Those are my "bona fides", and before I get on to the meat of my point I wish to submit to the LGBT community at DU, I want to make it clear that...

I am NOT telling LGBT to be silent "for the sake of the Party".

I am NOT telling LGBTs that their feelings of hurt and betrayal are wrong, because they aren't, IMHO.

I AM making a point I recently considered and asking what the DU LGBT community thinks of my reasoning.

The only thing I am going to ask LGBT responders to this poll is to please try to analyze my assertion while putting aside as much as is possible, your quite justified feelings of hurt and betrayal, and tell me what you think of my thought strictly on it's own merits.

I know it's hard to think clearly when you're pissed or hurting inside. It happens to me and everyone. Try to do so, anyway, please.

OK, FINALLY, here is the thought I had and what do you think about it LGBT DUers?

The thought is what you'd call an "alternate hypothesis" to all the post-election Obama moves like most of his appointments, Warren, etc. (of which I have been a part of the "Obama angst", though I refuse to condemn him or otherwise go off the deep end before he has even taken office).

The alternative hyposthesis I speak of is that Obama may be a brilliant FDR/Lincoln-type political strategist who is that rarest of rare birds, especially these days in the USA...a person who truly wants to mend and heal, and knows very well the tough course he has to take and is thinking better and further down the road than any of us here on DU.

Now, that is by far the most optimistic interpretation, but watching the results, even early indication make this a more likely scenario than it ever has been since the Bushies most-likely killed JFK, RFK, and MLK. Apologies to the LGBTs on DU. I am NOT dismissing your feelings of betrayal, just stating certain possible strategio-political facts.

Remember FDR did NOT campiagn on The New Deal in 1933.

Plus, if this most optimistic scenario IS true, Obama seems like he betrayed LGBTs today, but it will result in a brighter future for all LGBTs down the line.

That's IF the most optimistic interpretation is true, and that is not certain. But I am coming to see that it may be more possible than I thought. Only time will tell.

====================================================================================

So, there it is. Maybe, just maybe, even though we hate it and think it wrong, Obama is thinking five-steps ahead of even we DUers with stuff like Warren (yes, we finally have a president who is MUCH SMARTER than us instead of just MUCH CRUELER, so these things are once again possible) and that in the end, crazily enough, this betrayal with Warren will in the long-run benefit LGBTs.

I know it sounds a little nuts, but think of the Emancipation Proclamation. You think enslaved African-Americans in the South (especially if they'd had the anonymous internet to bitch on like we do) didn't feel a little betrayed by the fact that THEY weren't freed, only Border State slaves, in 1863?

But, did the smart strategy of the Emancipation Proclamation not benefit the cause of African-American Freedom in the long-term, in spite of the short-term betrayal of leaving African-Americans in Redfederacy still enslaved?

Something to think about.

OK, I have said my piece. Now I would like to know what the LBGT community think about my assertions.

The poll itself is located in LGBT, and is linked to below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x108670

[patrice]

1. I don't think he had this particular issue plotted out, but that this IS his style of thinking.

Position his resources so that various things can happen and then see who does what, so he can make his own move(s), de-brief, repeat.

[Fovea]

2. A Bisexual man responds.

I fully understand your point, and it parallels another need, universal health care.

The problem of letting someone kick the can down the road again is that the boot and the pavement
takes a toll. People die while the can rolls down the road, partners stand by while often vengeful
family members shove them aside in a moment of grief.

We have gotten a lot of boot. And PE Obama was willing not only to kick the can down the road,
but showed in his choice of invocation presenters, a willingness to let the kid with the steel toed
boot be substitute kicker.


How fucked up is that, in a nation of change?


We have little choice but to hope you are correct, IMO.
But don't look to us in 2012. Expect to see a lot of green fairies on the streets.
That's just how it goes.

If PE Barack wants to keep his enemies closer than his friends, he has to understand that his friends
might have opinions about that which affect their friendship.