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And Now, A Minute To Discuss DADT

by: Mark My Words

Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 02:17:04 AM CDT

(Peace, single payer health care, honor for gays in the military, no torture, civil rights - these are the issues that we worked for. How are we doing? - promoted by Grace Kelly)

I've become a cynic on the entire subject related to President Obama's ovations he made towards the GLBT community while he was running for president.

In fact, I've become skeptical to the entire Democratic Party's views towards the GLBT community. The GLBT has been ferociously loyal to the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party has reacted to that ferocity by turning the GLBT's support into nothing short of a cliche'.

The other day, I had a volunteer call me from the DFL looking for my ~~husband~~ life-partner, and when I identified myself as his partner, she identified herself and wanted me consider a donation.

Mega-mistake. Oh boy...

She got an earful. When I said my partner wasn't available, she said; "Then maybe his wife is around?!"

Oh boy....

I said: "ummm... It's illegal for him to get married. I'm his life-partner. We're a gay couple. Is there something that I can help you with?!"

That's when she told me that she was from the DFL and was looking for some cash.

Oh boy...

The DFL is clearly out of touch with the GLBT.

Short version of that conversation: She agreed with me 100% and she admitted that the DFL and the Democrats have treated the Gay Voter as a free meal ticket. Her tone was pretty queasy, you could hear a couple of tears in her tone. She apologized twice I think, but I lost count after I got to the part where the DFL simply walked away from bills in both the state House and the Senate in hopes that they would just go away.

Mark My Words :: And Now, A Minute To Discuss DADT

Just two days ago, Obama's Press Secretary was on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and Chris Todd squeezed him with this:

The logic here is that Obama doesn't want to look like he's side-stepping Federal Law by killing DADT by issuing an executive order.

He's using the GLBT Community as a patsy for political cover. To me, it's beginning to look like he's using his campaign promises aimed at the GLBT Community as a political savings account that he'll spend as political capital in case his approval ratings are low in the lame-duck mid-term elections in 2010 as well as his re-election in 2012.

September 2010 and we've got a half-dozen US Senators from the Republican Party to replace?

DOMA gets eliminated!

October 2012 and Obama's polling some low numbers?!

DADT gets blown out of the water!

Last March, Defense Sec admits that they're going to "push [DADT] it down the road" because they're way too busy to discuss life-long careers of GLBT members of the US Military getting toilet-tanked.

Today, Secretary Gates has changed course on the subject:

"The Pentagon boss said he discussed the issue last week with US President Barack Obama and that there also has been discussion among senior military and legal counsel about possible changes in how they apply the law, which he described as 'very restrictive.' The defense secretary said one possible modification might be consider the circumstances under which a service member is 'outed' in determining whether or not he or she must leave the military. Gates offered as an example 'when we're given information from someone with vengeance in mind or blackmail, somebody who has been jilted. 'If somebody is outed by a third party, does that force us to take action?' he said."
Added Gates: "We're talking about how do we move forward on this, achieve this objective which is changing the policy."

(h/t Andy Towle)

Yesterday, Obama met with GLBT "Leaders" and gave this rousing 18:00 minute greeting:

(h/t to Pam Spaulding who carried both the video and the entire transcript)

This is an 18-minute video of Obama meeting with "Leaders" of the GLBT community and his un-dying support of equal rights to the gay community. At the 12:30-mark, you'll get to watch Obama demand an appeal towards DADT. It's a flop: Nobody disagrees with that. Except for those who are losing their jobs and getting kicked out of the US Military because they ~~have blond hair~~ are gay.

Let's check out Lt. Col Fehrenbach on Rachel Maddoow's show for a minute:

Within the first minute of the video; Obama has dismissed the LGBT Community by using the African-American Community as a patsy.

We get it, people! It's time you get it too!

Don't call us and expect our wallets to magically flop-open every time you dial our land-line. (God knows, that DFL-volunteer realized it real quick-like!)

Action is always louder than words! We get the message: You don't want us to get married, and you hate the idea that we might share the same hospitalization-rights that you take for granted.

...The Gays are still over here, sitting in the corner waiting for you guys to figure it out!

Is this satisfactory to you? Pony-Up, Progressive DFL-ers!

Can you get married?
Can you join the military?
Can you catch a ride in the Ambulance when your significant other has taken a turn for the worse?

Lucky you! Because we can't!

Doesn't that bother you?! Why not?!

As I said: "I've become a cynic with all of these empty promises of "change" and "hope". In this economy, I find myself with very little change and even less hope. But if you have change you can throw away towards these Democrats...by all means: Be my guest.

Tags: gays, gay disease, gays in the military, US military, DADT, don't ask - don't tell, robert gates, Robert Gibbs, GOP, GLBT, Gay, (All Tags)

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And Now, A Minute To Discuss DADT | 3 comments

Doesn't that bother you?! (0.00 / 0)

Yes. YES. YES, THAT BOTHERS ME A GREAT DEAL.

When one group's freedoms are under attack, ALL groups freedoms are under attack.

As a veteran, I tell all: DADT does NOT go far enough; it is past time for open equality not only in our nation's armed forces - it is past time for open equality in every aspect throughout our nation.

And I am profoundly disappointed in President Obama over his DADT flip-flop.

"Those that forget the lessons of history, tend to vote GOP"

by: TwoPuttTommy @ Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 21:40:05 PM CDT

Would I like to see full equality NOW? (0.00 / 0)

Yes and I won't stop until that happens (I won't stop when that happens either!).

But the Obama Administration has committed to ending DADT by the time he stands for re-election. I fully expect that to be the case. I also expect that ENDA, hate crimes and more will pass. He is in favor of DOMA which is all that matters on the federal level.

I'm not working for Democrats that don't vote for that stuff. But they are out there.

If we had 60 Al Franken's in the US Senate all this would be in law. But we don't. We only have 20-30 Democrats who are really committed to equality. Enough pushing and we may get to a majority. We've still got bigots in this party. Colin Peterson for one, didn't even vote for hate crimes.

I'm not too concerned about what President Obama is doing about GLBT rights. Could he make it a higher priority? Sure. But he's said he'll get this stuff done and it's all moving through Congress.

Discrimination does a helluva lot more than bother me. I hope it bothers you too. Every DFL gubernatorial candidate (with the exception of Bakk who I can't get a answer from) is in favor of full marriage equality. We will get that done once we get rid of Pawlenty.

In 2004 John Kerry and John Edwards openly campaigned on denying civil rights to GLBT people. We've made progress. I'm not going to call it quits on Barack Obama and the Democratic Party after less than 6 months.

by: Populista @ Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 23:54:02 PM CDT

You're surprised by this? (0.00 / 0)

For most Democrats and most citizens, the most important election issue was not civil rights for gays, or global warming, or the wars, or even getting a sane health care solution for the working people of the United States.

For most Democrats and most citizens, the single most important issue was getting the Republicans out of there--out of Congress in the last election but one, and out of the White House in the last election.

I'm a liberal, not a Democrat. That's because even though I vote for Democrats, I know they're no angels. They make promises that they break, they don't follow through on their rhetoric of change. I end up voting for them most of the time for the same reason that gay voters do: because the competition they have are conservatives and Republicans--who are from hell, the well-funded, media-savvy part of hell that will do you and me in, in a heartbeat.

As a straight liberal, I make the same threat that you do: don't ask me for effing money if you're selling me out, don't ask me for money if you're going to fail to follow through on your promises of reform, and definitely don't ask me for money if you can't control the other Democrats you need to get the reforms through.

I tell the Democrats that only time they're ever going to see anything in the way of support from me is 1) if they deliver on their rhetoric or 2) if there's a real danger that a sociopathic conservative is going to replace them in office.

The problem for you and me is that the parties are not the same and do not offer a viable alternative for you or me. The author is talking about the issue of gay rights here, but has to remember that if you don't support Democrats just enough to keep conservatives out--you lose not only on the gay rights issue, but on the global warming issue, on the war issue, on the health care issue, on the education funding issue, on the economic issues.

That's my problem, when I try to punish hypocritical Dems by withholding money--and it's your problem, too, because all those other issues affect you and your family and community just as much as the gay rights issue.

by: Bill Prendergast @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 00:34:17 AM CDT