Well, it’s over for now. The 2008 Presidential Election is history. A benign bigot won who expected our unconditional support but who, in turn, would not even speak up for our right to be treated as equals and to protect the ones we love. By Obama’s incessant, and unethical, repetition of: “I believe marriage is between a Man and Woman” mantra he gave permission for voters in his own party of “Hope” and “Equality for All” to vote Yes for Obama and Yes for Proposition 8 in California.

YES WE CAN! …Indeed.

Thanks for your support, Obama. I guess we got what we deserved for being so naïve. We are politically expendable. Nothing is going to change that fact any time soon either. Fear drove most of us to support a candidate who does not support us. He does not view us as equals — no matter what his finely tailored speeches profess to his immense tapestry comprising millions of disciples loosely stitched together by White guilt, Black disenfranchisement, Blue-Collar displacement and Gay desperation.

Yet how committed is Obama to some of his congregation? Imagine the mixed message Obama sent to the people of California — especially in the minority community. After all, how many of them must have asked this to themselves, as they went to vote: “Well, Obama is against homosexuals getting married — so why should we be for it. Obama is a fair and reasonable man, so it must be wrong. Like he said, in so many words, it’s not right for queers to get married. They can go sit at another table. The Marriage Table is reserved for “god’s chosen people” — for heterosexuals only.” Or so says our great, fair-minded, emancipator of the downtrodden.

Yes, thanks for nothing, Obama. One word, just one word, just a simple: “Vote NO on Proposition 8” might have made the difference in many people’s minds – especially in the uneducated minority community where too many, unfortunately, relish the thought of the role of a formerly oppressed minority being reversed so that they can take out their angst by kicking another minority in the teeth.

Tragically, far too many in racial minority communities believe that the road to status quo membership in society is to find another minority to take their place at the bottom of the social heap. And the religious excuses they use are lame rationalization for their minority targeted, anti-social, bigoted, vile behavior. It is the same conduct attributed to how White Trash treated Blacks in the 1960s in the South. To paraphrase Shakespeare: The play is the same, only the actors have changed roles.

Barrack Obama made reference to us in the GLBT community during his acceptance speech Nov. 3, 2008, where we were sandwiched somewhere between Blacks and Whites and Disabled People. I listened to his soaring rhetoric with sadness — erudite and inspiring, but still filled with empty, meaningless words that I doubt will ever find application.

Blacks, Latinos and other minorities don’t need him to fight for their civil rights anymore. The only minority left in the United States against whom it is legal to discriminate is the GLBT community. Like a good lawyer, Obama is both comprehensive and evasive in his message of “inclusion” involving us — which usually ends with an segregationist scheme. Where is the unqualified outrage that Robert Kennedy showed when he spoke out against racism before his own tragic life was ended by an assassin’s bullet? Where is the uncompromising convictions of a Lyndon Johnson who knew the Democratic party would lose the South if he pushed for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act? But Johnson pushed for its passage anyway.

Blacks could just have been ignored before the riots of the 60s. They were not that essential in the political scheme of things on Capital Hill. But, at their own political risks, many White politicians put their political careers on the line to stand up for what was right. No minority in this country would ever achieve equality without a fair judiciary and without the political leadership that sets the wheels of justice in motion.

For those who say that only the courts shall be the final arbitrators of our fate, I say you are wrong. When Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education was decided, the Eisenhower Republican administration was already on board to end segregation in America. When Loving vs. Virginia was decided, the political climate in Washington (after the 1964 Civil Rights Act) was already in favor of quietly removing the last racial barriers dividing the races in America. And even though the majority of Americans still were against interracial marriage, after the Supreme Court Ruling in 1967, there was no political upheaval over it.

So who now in American politics is our champion? Who now would risk any of their political capital for us? All we are told is to be quiet and to let things happen gradually behind the scenes. Our leaders in the GLBT community tells us to be patient. But “baby-steps” is quickly becoming the new definition for bullsh*t. Radical changes rarely happen in slow motion. Demands for equality are never heard if they are whispered.

Our own history should inform us. Where would the GLBT rights movement have been without Stonewall to get the ball rolling. Also contributory, the GLBT organization called ACT-UP was considered by many mainstream Gays as being too “militant” but they brought public awareness to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s in ways that the mainstream, Gay unfriendly, media would never willingly do. ACT-UP’s public acts of civil disobedience made people see the epidemic in ways that quiet talk behind closed doors could never accomplish.

We need a pro-active organization like that now to publicly demand our rights. Scream, shout, lie down in the streets and tie up traffic. Chain yourselves by the hundreds, all over the country, to the doors of Marriage License Bureaus if that’s what it takes to show we are serious. How can we expect other people to understand that Rights are not a gift to be bestowed or taken away by any benign or hostile majority. Equal Rights, just like every other American’s Rights, belong to us too at birth and cannot be taken away.

Now ask yourself this about our newly elected President, Ask yourself: if some other minority was the object of a hateful proposition that would have denied them equal citizenship, would Barrack Obama have been so silent on it? I think not. But see how easily he makes the transition from lofty platitudes and his glorious rhetoric of “inclusion” and “equality” to jumping aboard the hate-wagon rolling over our bodies and the bodies of those we love — that is, if that wagon just happens to be moving in the direction he wants to go.

And please don’t dredge up that tired old chestnut of “well, if he openly supported our rights, he wouldn’t win”. The fact of the matter is that Obama didn’t have to lock himself into the indefensible position of opposing our equality while supporting an apartheid system of laws created just for our management. He did not have to ride the wave of bigotry to election.

When asked about marriage equality, he could have simply said that the question should be left up to the states (a position I don’t agree with any more than interracial marriage should be allowed to just remain a state issue), never-the-less, he could have just left it at that. But no, he had to be over-emphatic in his denunciation of same-sex marriage equality at every opportunity. What kind of “friend” to our community is that?

Obama took tens of millions of dollars from us for his campaign and tens of millions of votes from us to further his ambitions and then he turns his back on us to let the wolves come together to rip us to shreds — many of whom were his strongest supporters, in his own race, who joined with the very same people they despised in the Republican party. All the while, Obama turned a blind eye to this blood-fest. Is that the kind of Messianic leader the GLBT community has been waiting for? If I where a religious person, I’d say it sounds more like the coming of the anti-Christ.

I did not vote for Obama. My Gay neighbor, at first, said that he would never vote for Obama either. But then, for whatever reason, he jumped on board the bandwagon. I suppose the high school football lure of being on the winning side is like an irresistible narcotic enticement too much for some people with weaker convictions to resist. It didn’t matter much though, because we both live in the Reddest of Red States — Kansas. So, a symbolic protest vote against Obama would not have altered the election one bit.

I may have even held my nose and voted for Obama if I lived in a Swing State because the thought of a malignant bigot being elected over a benign bigot would be too great a risk even for me to imagine. It is so tragic that we only have such unhealthy choices to make. It is really time we start looking for a viable third party, at least in Congress to start — the Presidency later.

If Joe Lieberman could control the agenda with just his one vote in the Senate, a third party of around ten percent of the members of Congress could give maximum representation to a minority such as ours. A third party would be a powerbroker and could caucus with either party for control of Congress and in setting political agenda on a quid pro quo basis. Coalitions could be formed and “orphan” legislation (that is legislation which no party wants to go out on the limb for alone) could be passed.

We owe nothing to the Democratic Party because they have (witness DOMA and DADT) given us nothing but betrayal or indifference in return. I really wanted to like Obama, but I don’t believe he has the courage to stick his neck out for us like President Johnson did for Black folk. I’d be pleasantly surprised if I am wrong. But I will not hold my breath until then.

(C) Bud Evans, 2008

I’m surprised it’s only 7%. With all the travesty that is coming from the Republican ticket, I surely thought it would much higher.

Regarding the $700 billion bailout, I suggest people look at Michael Moore’s interesting suggestion on how to handle this crises. It begins . . .

The richest 400 Americans — that’s right, just four hundred people — own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion — the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the “bailout.” Why don’t they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They’d still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

“Some Gay People Have Actually Looked Behind the Curtain…”

And what they often find is a Republican operative masquerading as a Democrat or independent and trying to sow confusion and doubt in order to undermine support for the Democratic candidate. It’s an old political stunt.