Subscribe to Breaking NewsRuby-Sachs: The Memo and The Movement
Here’s the important thing: it is best to assume that the memo and the movement have nothing to do with each other.
A memo is temporary, does not include health benefits and only applies to the few Federal employees. It’s like a gift: an unrelated pleasant surprise from a source one expects to get nothing from. For those Federal employees who can now use sick days to take care of their partners (and I know one and she is thrilled and I celebrate with her, her good fortune) yesterday was a good day.
But the movement isn’t about temporary measures. It isn’t about dividing the gay community into small segments that slowly each get a few benefits.
A movement does not depend on the goodwill of a benevolent leader. It requires the leader to pay attention. It takes away funding until that leader listens and it organizes to create enough friction that the objective of the movement becomes as important as the everyday emergencies facing this world.
That is what we tasted these past few days. Then Obama served up a little dessert. Let’s not let the sweetness of a few words and few benefits for a few people lampoon the real movement that we are all part of. Let’s work to create the same conflicts and news worthy protest until rights are granted completely and to all.
Yes! Its important not to let the little victories dilute the real issues!
Actually, what Obama granted Federal Employees is really not new. The Clinton Administration issued th same order adding LGBT to EEO protections and granting Family leave rights. The practice was never rescinded by the Bush Administration. So, I think this was more PR than anything.
A pathetic gesture.
Ive never identified strongly as a democrat, they use us to show how “open minded” and “inclusive” they are… and I certainly havent identified as a republican, they use us to show how “immoral” our society has become, and scare people into voting republican so we dont “turn their children gay”. I had hoped Obama would be an ally, but Im becoming more bitter as the days go on, empty words, empty political gestures, no real action, except to support DOMA… I wonder if I sweet talk my mortgage holder and say that one day I will make sure they are paid, if they will let me keep my house indefinitely? I think not… Im about to foreclose on my support for the Obama administration, my support will go to whoever supports me, whether they be the Gavin Newsoms of the world or God forbid the Dick Cheneys, at least he can support us without tiptoeing around and speaking nice ambiguous inclusive phrases.
I am very much an activist for gay rights. But come on folks, we can’t expect anyone – not the President or anyone else – to change things overnight. We have to face the fact that there a realities to deal with here. Obama has been in office for 5 months. We shouldn’t be slamming him at this point. There’s only so much he can do this early in his presidency. I believe Obama is with us, but we have to give him time – lots of time.
Emma,
You are spot on. It was a slick move on Obama’s part but too cute by half. I have never seen my friends so upset, the AG’slegal brief was their last straw. Some have already registered as Independents.
I remember, several years ago, when Colin Powell was busy justifying DADT. There he was, one of the most powerful people in the world, one of the most respected public figures, and he was a child of Jamaican immigrants–just like the dopeboys who were at the same time busy shooting parts of Brooklyn, DC, Philly and Baltimore into socioeconomic collapse. Nobody tagged him with that, and he had the hubris to think that he’d overcome all the cultural baggage blacks have faced in the US since the first slaves were brought to Jamestown. Today he’s singing a different tune–and maybe not so coincidentally, after he was pushed out when he stopped being a suitably compliant puppet. He was and is a man of integrity, but he bought into the argument that being gay was incompatible with military service.
Barack Obama is another one who thinks he’s insulated from the indignities that non-white Americans were subjected to. He tries and tries to deny that gays are part of the same continuum of civil rights expansion as blacks and women. He shows his hand, and it’s a cheating hand. Obama has no intention of helping us. He will gladly use us, gladly entice us to give him money, but he hasn’t done a goddamn thing to put his clout where his values claim to be.
Perhaps, like Ebenezer Scrooge, Obama can be induced to look in himself and change his ways. You don’t have to be black to feel that the Obama family is a good representation of America, and yes, I still believe that. But I also believe that Barack Hussein Obama needs to do like Colin Powell and reconsider his hubris. Powell is still a man worthy of respect. Obama is making himslef into a man unworthy of respect by his increasingly uncovered antigay bigotry. Oh, the gays can wait until the end of the first term–that assumes that the gays will allow that second term to come. Maybe the gays can wait until the end of the second term–that assumes even more that the previous fantasy. Maybe Barack Obama started the countdown to gay equality with his own bigotry. Every day brings more pressure for him to account for his position and to show some action. He doesn’t want to act, and he keeps getting caught in his recalcitrance.
If having Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney or Bobby Jindal as the next President is what it takes to drive this point home to the Dems and the GOP alike, maybe it’s what has to happen. Obama not only thinks he can manipulate gays, he also seems to think that he can maneuver the entire Democratic infrastructure to achieve that end. Within a few weeks, that’s already proven to be a very misguided fantasy. Obama is on the verge of undoing a lot of Democratic achievement, and it’s beginning to seem like more and more of the Dem establishment is becoming uncomfortable at the increasing cost of quieting the angry homos. They created this mess, but it’s Obama who has put the fine touches on the betrayal. It’s time for Obama to check himself or be checked.
How prophetic. I was warning everybody I could about this clown for more than a year before the election. In 2008, I wrote an essay in an attempt to expose this fraud and his family.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Michelle Obama Meets with GLBT Delegates.
Michelle Obama called for the delegates to work together to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Barack Obama has said that he supports civil unions, but believes marriage is between a man and a woman, Mrs. Obama reiterated.
Hmmmm…and then there is this little gem.
“Discrimination has no place in a nation founded on the promise of equality,” she said, receiving a standing ovation.
And the crowd went wild!!! Yeah!!! Then the GLBT lemmings put their paper bags back over their faces and, non-confrontationally, returned to the convention hall with their shoe-shine kits and strict instructions to keep out of the sight of the national media.
Of course, no problem there. Really. Only mention the word “Gay” and the corporate-controlled media runs the other way like a vampire being chased by someone with garlic breath. Witness how proud and out gay Olympic Gold Metal Champion, diver Matthew Mitcham, got the quick snub while closet-cases (who shall remain unnamed, for now) were all peppered with the incessantly lame “who’s your girl-friend?” haranguing from the hetero-centric press; even when these athletes repeatedly said they didn’t have any intimates of the female persuasion — except for dear old mom, of course.
Witness also how the politically prickly “GLBT” word has so comfortably replaced all other once-disenfranchised minorities in the 21st century as an acceptable group to be trotted out and dumped on by the pernicious Republicans, or relegated to a “manageable resource” to be kept quietly in its proper place as useful fools during each election cycle by the Plantation Masters in the Democratic Party.
People occasionally chastize me, “How dare you compare gay people to Black people — even metaphorically? Blacks were beaten; murdered; treated like sub-humans.”
To which I reply: Yes, and the difference is?
Gertrude Stein once wrote: “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose”…but to put it in the modern parlance, I would add: A Slave is a Slave is a Slave. Yes, you actually are a slave in any country that forces you under the yoke of inequality and then demands that you kneel before the false superiority of others who, under the color of authority, claim for themselves special privilege and advantage over you.
For example, Barack Obama states for the record: “Discrimination has no place in a nation founded on the promise of equality,” BUT then his actions, especially at the so-called “Faith Forum“ proves his a liar. He claims: Some rights are reserved only for god’s (insert the clarion call of celestial trumpets here) chosen people — the Heterosexuals. These superior homo sapiens…uh…sorry…I mean…the “sacred” hetero sapiens are alone entitled to “special” state protection and “special” official recognition of their love and commitment to one another. The Gays (?)…not so much.
Barack unethical way of thinking continues, and might easily read: While I am a fair-minded, albeit ambitious, Black politician (and formerly oppressed minority who really wants to be part of the status quo), I’ll just call it (marriage equality) something else in order to keep them (the gays) off the grass (political controversy) and out of our (heterosexual privilege) neighborhood. That, and to make it perfectly clear, what they call a “marriage” is not a real marriage because, damnit, they’re just not one of us. And just because everybody is now expected to be race-blind in America, that doesn’t mean that we don’t occasionally need someone else’s neck to stand upon once in a while in order to look taller. Now does it?
Please someone substitute the word BLACK for GAY and the word WHITE for STRAIGHT and let’s see how that would go over with the Black delegates and the White civil rights supporters when Obama says, quite clearly, that he believes in limited equality for some Americans. What an oxymoron. As if such a horrific thing should ever be allowed to exist in America again. Sadly, all of this proves is that Barack Obama, if he was white, would have been very comfortable living in the Deep South in the 1950s.
Why can’t anyone see in such a close election, Obama needs us, the GLBT community much more than we need him. Make him work for our support. Don’t settle for less, because that is exactly what you will always get — LESS. Equal means equal — it can never be allowed to mean: “SORT OF EQUAL“.
Wow, the stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming at the DNC. The only ray of light in this den of self-congratulating politicos and delusional zombies was from Ted Kennedy. He was the most genuine, unabashed, courageous Democrat there at the podium in prime time. He’s been the only one there, so far, who can talk with genuine honesty, with an unimpeachable lifelong record, concerning his dauntless fight for social justice; equality and universal human rights.
But Barak Obama has a proven himself to be a disgrace. The only thing worst than a bigot is a bigot from a formerly oppressed minority. If anyone, they should know better. It is unforgivable. He is a shameful example of a slick politician with no morals; no ethics, and no loyalty to anyone or anything beyond his own ambition.
Michelle’s special privileged spouse believes that nobody in the GLBT community should be entitled to the same rights which he and his spouse take so nonchalantly for granted each day of their lives together — without ever having to be forced to fight to keep those privileges that he claims are his alone due to his group affiliation — i.e. heterosexual self-styled Christian. Obama believes that Gays should cheerfully take a seat at the back of the marriage bus because “god” has reserved the seats at the front of the bus only for heterosexuals — because Obama’s “god” thinks that hetero love alone is “sacred” and entitled to special privilege.
Jesus H. Christ!!! And they gave this woman a standing ovation? What a bunch of disgusting Uncle Toms we have in the GLBT Community. Have we stooped so low that we have allowed ourselves to be fooled into thinking that we should be happy to accept a filthy cup of dirty water, without complaint? Whereas, everybody else (who is not GLBT) is assured that they (being “god’s chosen people) are entitled, from birth, to pure, clean water from the Well of Equality — the same place where we are turned away.
I am so ashamed of the GLBT delegates at the this phony convention. When did they become such lap dogs? Your former “Pride” and your once uncompromising stance on full equality has degenerated into nothing but a bunch of rubber-stamping, party-going, lavender “Step ‘em Fetch ‘its”, and “Queer Eyes” for the Obama Guy. You have all become nothing more than fund-raising gaggles of court jesters, flatterers, and buffoons. How pathetic.
By the way, why haven’t any of you asked Obama the following question. Since Barack believes that marriage is not a universal civil right for all non-related, adult human beings, but rather a “special right” reserved for heterosexuals only — then ask him, what about the thousands of legally MARRIED same-sex couples that already do exists in this hateful country? Does he think that these marriages should all be annulled and then civil unionized some time in the future? To what reservation is he planning to move us? Does his vision of a “One Country, One People” involve creating an apartheid-like system for us who dare to live outside of his segregated, grand scheme. Obama’s equality principal, in brief, is this: “Equality for Everyone — But We’ll Call It Something Else for the Homos“.
If this is his vision for “One America“, then perhaps someone ought to tell him that he just left a whole lot of people out — that is, as if he really cares. Tragically, for us and for all fair-minded people — I think he does not mind it all. According to his way of thinking, we are just political untouchables to be used, and then tossed aside.
The “Audacity of Hope”…indeed.
© Bud Evans, 2008
I find it ironic that Obama mentions the word equality for LGBT people. Which equality is he talking about, legal segregation via civil unions? He firmly believes they represent full equality. The man is delusional. As an African-American how on earth can he equate separate as equal? Unfortunately, we know what’s in the mix….GOD. This recent gesture granting some rights to federal gay workers is nothing more than appeasement because of the looming back lash that is coming his way. He’d better take us seriously along with every other Dem because come 2012 with nothing major accomplished in our favor, DADT and DOMA, he’ll be looking at a one term residency in the White House. I’m tired of the apologists claiming there are other more important issues to resolve. Even if they didn’t exist, do any of us really believe we would be any further along the road? I don’t. I’m sick and tired of delay, delay, delay, every which way and equally pissed off having my vote and financial support taken for granted. NO MORE.
I understand everyone wants more and clearly I do too. But why are we slamming the steps that are made? Although it should be more and although we deserve more this will help alot of federally employed families. I dont know why we’re belittling it. Repealing DADT wont affect our whole community either. But as a community we gain more rights and respect through each “little” thing. I’m excited that we are finally moving in the right direction. Do I want/expect more? Of course and I will keep fighting till we all have complete equal rights.
Sorry, “bryantkcmo”, it was a nearly empty gesture. Most of those relatively inconsequential “perks” were already there for same-sex partners of federal employees through Executive Order from Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Even Clinton extended job protection to Gay and Lesbian federal employees nearly two decades ago –and George Bush let the order stand.
Obama came up with next to nothing but an empty gesture. Obama is a repulsive FRAUD!
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bryantkcmo wrote: “Although it should be more and although we deserve more this will help alot of federally employed families.”
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The biggest and most important benefits not extended to our families were and are — FULL HEALTH BENEFITS and PENSION BENEFITS and SURVIVORS BENEFITS. The rest is insignificant fluff compared to that when protecting our families.
Believe me, if Blacks or Latinos or just ordinary working (non-Lesbian) women were deprived of their equality, this would be a “high priority” for him and for the Democratic controlled Congress.
Not one red cent until they deliver!
Please stop making excuses for the bum. It’s pathetic.
I am wondering if the problem is not really with OBAMA but the people he has around ADVISING him? Not trying to defend his action or lack of action, but we need to look at these advisors of his…
What is Rahm Emanuel and others views? I have an idea about Hillary… any one can share some inside info. on his advisors. I will be glad to write them and out them for their bigotry.
I am independant, therefore, I dont give anyone in politics a “Free ride” when it comes to our rights!
I want a meal, not a bone. The only way for real action to come about is to seriously put the President’s and Congress’ feet to the fire and force the issue. Nobody wants to see this President be successful more than I do but to be successful he must do the right thing. Help me force the issue. Sign my petition. http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/AbstinenceOnly/