Spend anytime reading the comment sections on gay political sites and there is lots of vitriol for President Barack Obama. From DOMA to DADT, there is a palpable sense the Obama administration has turned its back to the  LGBT community. That is a fair reading few would dispute, even those who continue to support the White House. However, the Palm Center released a paper arguing DADT is still around because of conscious choices by gay activists.

Called “Self-Inflicted Wounds”, the report argues when chatter for Obama to sign a executive directive to get rid of DADT was at its peak,  “a network of gay and gay-friendly activists, journalists and politicos worked to derail the possibility of a suspension of the ban.” Aaron Belkin, the paper’s author, makes the case that instead of focusing on a two tier attack, pushing  the president and congress, the “gay and gay-friendly activists journalists and politicos” focused their attention solely on the legislative side of the DADT debate.

No names are listed but if you remember reporter Jason Bellini, in a Daily Beast video, hinted the Human Rights Campaign might have informed the White House the military ban should be worked on last, after the hate crimes bill (HRC head Joe Solmonese vigorously denied  the implications of Bellini’s reporting).

Belkin’s paper will get a lot of press, as it should. Hopefully it will also engender a conversation about the nature of leadership. Maybe it’s time for us to recognize that a diverse group such as the “gay community” is cannot put all of its eggs in a leadership basket. Some who we think speak for the community are essentially on the hunt for access to power. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you are looking for change you might need to look beyond groups like HRC.

“I want you to know: You have our support,” Obama told members of the core Democratic constituency as he and first lady Michelle Obama hosted a cocktail-and-appetizer reception in the East Room for gay pride month. It’s been some four decades since the police raid on New York City’s gay Stonewall Inn that spurred gay rights activism across the country.

As activists work to change minds and change laws, Obama added: “I will not only be your friend, I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a president who fights with you and for you.”

Since Obama took office in January, some activists have complained that Obama has not followed through on his campaign promises on issues they hold dear and has not championed their causes from the White House, including ending the ban on gays in the military.

Obama pleaded for patience.

“I know many in this room don’t believe that progress has come fast enough. And I understand that,” Obama said. But he added: “I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I’ve made, but by promises that my administration keeps.”

By the time he leaves office, the president said, “I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.”

The crowd erupted in cheers.

He noted that he has issued a presidential memorandum expanding some federal benefits to same-sex partners. Critics have noted that it doesn’t include health benefits or pension guarantees.

Obama also reminded the audience that he has called on Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits how state, local and federal bodies can recognize partnerships and determine benefits. Still, he added: “We have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate existing divides.”

He said that does not mean he doesn’t back a repeal of the law.

Obama also said the administration is working to pass an employee nondiscrimination bill and a hate crimes bill that includes protections for gays and lesbian, and he said it’s committed to rescinding a ban on entry to the United States based on HIV status.

Obama reiterated his support for repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they don’t disclose their sexual orientation or act on it. He said he doesn’t believe the policy makes the United State more secure, and he said his administration is working with Congress to develop a plan that will end the practice legislatively in a way that ensures the new policy works in the long term.

In a statement, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese said,  “President Obama’s remarks today were welcomed and appreciated and, as he stated, it is the actions to advance equality — not simply the words — that will be the true marker by which this White House will be judged.  

“On the eve of this weekend’s 40th anniversary of Stonewall, the president has yet again reiterated his support for most of the critical federal issues facing millions of LGBT Americans. We must continue the hard work of turning that support into the passage of actual laws. We look forward to working with President Obama and his administration to advance equality, and we pledge to be good-faith partners throughout the many battles that lie ahead of us.”

“We can wait for the president to try to move members of Congress, or we can redouble our efforts and get about doing that work ourselves,” Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Thursday.

The two most contentious proposals on the activists’ agenda – both backed by Obama during his election campaign – would extend federal recognition to same-sex partnerships and repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars gays from serving openly in the military.

The president says he wants to work with Congress to achieve both goals, but many gay-rights activists contend he is moving too slowly and hesitantly. The frustration was eased only slightly, if at all, when Obama signed a memorandum Wednesday extending limited benefits to the same-sex partners of gay federal employees.

“The atmospherics were fine, but the substance was zero,” Ethan Geto, a New York-based activist and political consultant, said of the signing ceremony.

Obama’s problem with the gay community, Geto said, stems largely from the high expectations raised by his campaign rhetoric.

“He said the gay-rights agenda would be a priority for his administration – and he received an enormous amount of support from the community,” Geto said. “Now people are beginning to really question his commitment. … Gay donors are running away in droves.”

Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, which campaigns nationally for gay marriage rights, said he remains optimistic over the long term because the American public “is ready for change.”

“What we need now is leadership from the president, Congress and state officials to deliver that change,” he said. “I’m frustrated and disappointed that the administration has not yet delivered on the vision we share for a more equal America.”

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the longest serving of the three openly gay members of Congress, said many activists placed unrealistic expectations on Obama and underestimated the need to lobby Congress relentlessly in the style of the National Rifle Association.

“It’s not that Obama doesn’t want to do it, but you need the votes,” Frank said. “You can’t complain about the president until you’ve called your senator.”

Leaders of some national gay-rights organizations acknowledged Frank’s point.

“We’re working hard to secure the needed votes,” said Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “All these issues will take work on the part of Congress as well as the president.”

The gay-rights bill closest to a vote in Congress would expand the federal hate-crimes law to cover anti-gay violence. It has passed the House and is awaiting a Senate vote, but Solmonese said its backers are proceeding cautiously, wary of possible Republican maneuvers to derail it.

Later this year, action is possible on a bill that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

There’s no timetable, however, for the pending bill to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Obama says he wants to build support for the change among military commanders before urging Congress to move ahead.

Gay-rights leaders concede that Obama has his hands full with wars, recession, health care reform and other challenges, but they nonetheless feel slighted – compared to other liberal constituencies – by a president who, during the campaign, said he would be a “fierce advocate” for gay rights.

“Show us you are indeed that fierce advocate,” said Jody Huckaby, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Huckaby said he was particularly dismayed last week when Obama’s Justice Department defended the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to reject other states’ legal gay marriages and prohibits federal recognition of any same-sex partnerships. As candidate, Obama promised to repeal the act.

On the other hand, some conservative activists continue to decry Obama’s commitment to a “radical homosexual agenda” and have launched protests against some of the gays appointed to administration jobs. The prime target at the moment is Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, who has been named to oversee the Education Department’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the responsibility for inaction on gay-rights priorities lies with both Obama and Congress.

“It’s shocking to realize we still live a country where gay and lesbian people can’t serve openly in the military, have no federal protections in the private workplace, and same-sex couples are entitled to no benefits under federal law,” Minter said.

“There’s so much anger in our community. We expect the president and Congress to move forward.”

I’m confused. Earlier in the week the Human Rights Campaign took President Barack Obama’s Justice Department to task for its dreadful defense of DOMA. Sure Joe Solmonese’s letter was slightly annoying but it hit most of the right notes. Yesterday after Obama signed a presidential memorandum that gave a few partner benefits—not health insurance—-to gay and lesbian federal employees, here is the tune the HRC decided to sing:

“We commend President Obama and his administration for taking this action to provide some basic benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees and his endorsement of legislation that would provide domestic partner health benefits.”

A rather timid response considering you would be hard pressed to find anyone who is pleased with what happened yesterday (heck the White House had a difficult time explaining the directive to reporters). And if meek was the way HRC wanted to go, why not at least say this “first step” does not remove the bad taste from the Justice Department’s DOMA justification.

Well I guess I shouldn’t be too cranky with HRC this morning. At least the organization didn’t do a Barney Frank and actually defend the White House and DOMA. Yeah you read right, the gay congressman from Massachusetts, actually thinks the Justice Department in its brief “made a conscientious and largely successful effort to avoid inappropriate rhetoric.” Yeah that riff about incest was so spot on (for any slow readers: that line is ironic).

While I’m on the topic of slow readers here is a private message to two “special fans”: yes I know I’m racist. I only go after white folk and never have said anything negative about blacks. As in never. To my other “special needs” buddy, presently I’m reading Details to upgrade my sartorial choices.

This post will be bitter by half. Let’s get the puppies and rainbows out of the way first. Bravo to Joe Solmonese and his letter to the President Barack Obama. While I still need some more info about Human Rights Campaign and the alleged deal on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” always nice to see HRC send out something that isn’t about fund raising.

OK, here comes the bitta. Not clear who approves these HRC missives, but in the future, please stay away from this phrase. Please. As in pretty and please.

“I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.”

The pain we feel. The pain we feel. Excuse me but a politician does not care one whit about pain, such as it is, unless it’s the pain of losing an election or not getting a contribution. Emotional attempts at empathy fall flat in the rough and tumble world of politics because it is a chip with no value. Sure it would have been nice if the person drafting and approving the DOMA defense actually thought about how the incest line would be read, but I also want some hair, Denzel to have won the Oscar for Malcolm X instead of Training Day, and HBO’s The Wire to have earned one Emmy acting nomination (while I’m on the topic here is something private to anyone who went gaga over The Sopranos but couldn’t give The Wire any Emmy loving: you are an idiot).

Obama, like any pol, responds to power or its threat. In the Solmonese letter there is nothing about consequences. Nada. What is HRC going to do if Obama doesn’t do anything about DADT or DOMA? If we are looking for change, then that is the question that must be answered. If not, Obama will do what all pols have done before him. Move on and search for other votes.

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I have had the privilege of meeting you on several occasions, when visiting the White House in my capacity as president of the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization representing millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people across this country. You have welcomed me to the White House to express my community’s views on health care, employment discrimination, hate violence, the need for diversity on the bench, and other pressing issues. Last week, when your administration filed a brief defending the constitutionality of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” I realized that although I and other LGBT leaders have introduced ourselves to you as policy makers, we clearly have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours. I know this because this brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you.

So on behalf of my organization and millions of LGBT people who are smarting in the aftermath of reading that brief, allow me to reintroduce us. You might have heard of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. They waited 55 years for the state of California to recognize their legal right to marry. When the California Supreme Court at last recognized that right, the octogenarians became the first couple to marry. Del died after the couple had been legally married for only two months. And about two months later, their fellow Californians voted for Proposition 8.

Across this country, same-sex couples are living the same lives that Phyllis and Del so powerfully represent, and the same lives as you and your wife and daughters. In over 99% of U.S. counties, we are raising children and trying to save for their educations; we are committing to each other emotionally and financially. We are paying taxes, serving on the PTA, struggling to balance work and family, struggling to pass our values on to our children—through church, extended family, and community. Knowing us for who we are—people and families whose needs and contributions are no different from anyone else’s—destroys the arguments set forth in the government’s brief in Smelt. As you read the rest of what I have to say, please judge the brief’s arguments with this standard: would this argument hold water if you acknowledge that Del and Phyllis have contributed as much to their community as their straight neighbors, and that their family is as worthy of respect as your own?

Reading the brief, one is told again and again that same-sex couples are so unlike different-sex couples that unequal treatment makes sense. But the government doesn’t say what makes us different, or unequal, only that our marriages are “new.” The fact that same-sex couples were denied equal rights until recently does not justify denying them now.

For example, the brief seems to adopt the well-worn argument that excluding same-sex couples from basic protections is somehow good for other married people:
Because all 50 States recognize hetero-sexual marriage, it was reasonable and rational for Congress to maintain its longstanding policy of fostering this traditional and universally- recognized form of marriage.

The government does not state why denying us basic protections promotes anyone else’s marriage, nor why, while our heterosexual neighbors’ marriages should be promoted, our own must be discouraged. In other words, the brief does not even attempt to explain how DOMA is related to any interest, but rather accepts that it is constitutional to attempt to legislate our families out of existence.

The brief characterizes DOMA as “neutral:”
[DOMA amounts to] a cautious policy of federal neutrality towards a new form of marriage.

DOMA is not “neutral” to a federal employee serving in your administration who is denied equal compensation because she cannot cover her same-sex spouse in her health plan. When a woman must choose between her job and caring for her spouse because they are not covered by the FMLA, DOMA is not “neutral.” DOMA is not a “neutral” policy to the thousands of bi-national same-sex couples who have to choose between family and country because they are considered strangers under our immigration laws. It is not a “neutral” policy toward the minor child of a same-sex couple, who is denied thousands of dollars of surviving mother’s or father’s benefits because his parents are not “spouses” under Social Security law.

Exclusion is not neutrality.

Next, the brief indicates that denying gay people our equal rights saves money:

It is therefore permitted to maintain the unique privileges [the government] has afforded to [different-sex marriages] without immediately extending the same privileges, and scarce government resources, to new forms of marriage that States have only recently begun to recognize.

The government goes on to say that DOMA reasonably protects other taxpayers from having to subsidize families like ours. The following excerpt explains:

DOMA maintains federal policies that have long sought to promote the traditional and uniformly-recognized form of marriage, recognizes the right of each State to expand the traditional definition if it so chooses, but declines to obligate federal taxpayers in other States to subsidize a form of marriage that their own states do not recognize.

These arguments completely disregard the fact that LGBT citizens pay taxes ourselves. We contribute into Social Security equally and receive the same statement in the mail every year. But for us, several of the benefits listed in the statement are irrelevant—our spouses and children will never benefit from them. The parent who asserts that her payments into Social Security should ensure her child’s financial future should she die is not seeking a subsidy. The gay White House employee who works as hard as the person in the next office is not seeking a “subsidy” for his partner’s federal health benefits. He is earning the same compensation without receiving it. And the person who cannot even afford to insure her family because the federal government would treat her partner’s benefits as taxable income—she is not seeking a subsidy.

The government again ignores our experiences when it argues that DOMA § 2 does not impair same-sex couples’ right to move freely about our country as other families can:

DOMA does not affect “the right of a citizen of one State to enter and to leave another state, the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when temporarily present in the second State.”

This example shows the fallacy of that argument: a same-sex couple and their child drives cross- country for a vacation. On the way, they are in a terrible car accident. One partner is rushed into the ICU while the other, and their child, begs to be let in to see her, presenting the signed power of attorney that they carry wherever they go. They are told that only “family” may enter, and the woman dies alone while her spouse waits outside. This family was not “welcome.”

As a matter of constitutional law, some of this brief does not even make sense:

DOMA does not discriminate against homosexuals in the provision of federal benefits…. Section 3 of DOMA does not distinguish among persons of different sexual orientations, but rather it limits federal benefits to those who have entered into the traditional form of marriage.

In other words, DOMA does not discriminate against gay people, but rather only provides federal benefits to heterosexuals.

I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones:

And the courts have widely held that certain marriages, performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened public policy of th[at] state.”

As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief. In the course of your campaign, I became convinced—and I still want to believe—that you do, too. I have seen your administration aspire and achieve. Protecting women from employment discrimination. Insuring millions of children. Enabling stem cell research to go forward. These are powerful achievements. And they serve as evidence to me that this brief should not be good enough for you. The question is, Mr. President—do you believe that it’s good enough for us?

If we are your equals, if you recognize that our families live the same, love the same, and contribute as much as yours, then the answer must be no.

We call on you to put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress.

Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese

The latest attempt was made Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas by two large shareholders -  the New York City Comptroller and New York City Pension Funds, and by the LGBT rights group Human rights Campaign.

“ExxonMobil continues to have the dubious distinction of being the only Fortune 50 company that refuses to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their non-discrimination policy, and is stuck in the ever-shrinking minority of businesses that don’t offer domestic partner benefits,” said Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Joe Solmonese.

“It is irresponsible for ExxonMobil to ignore overwhelming shareholder support and not to join the majority of companies that provide equal protections and benefits to all families.”

Over the past decade, proposals to add gender identity and sexual orientation protections have been voted down. This year, 39.3 percent of shares were voted in favor of the policy, compared to 8.2 percent in 2000.

Shareholder support for the proposal has slowly increased each year it has been filed. In 2007, it was supported by 37.7 percent of shares voted; in 2006, it was supported by 34.6 percent of shares voted; and in 2005, it was supported by 29.4 percent.

ExxonMobil is the only company in America to have had a written non discrimination clause that included gays and to have rescinded it.

LGBT workers had been included in employment policies at Mobil. In December 1999 when Mobil merged with Exxon and under Exxon’s direction, the policy was abandoned. At the same time, it closed Mobil’s domestic partner benefits program to any more employees.

Twenty-four members of Congress, and thousands of stockholders and consumers, wrote to ExxonMobil Chairman Lee R. Raymond in December 1999 to protest the policy reversals.  In January 2000, stockholders and activists protested at a company facility in Houston, causing the facility to close for the day.  Current Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has maintained the same position on ExxonMobil’s policies.

A total of 423 – 85 percent – of Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies and 176 – more than 35 percent – include gender identity, including ExxonMobil competitors BP Corp., Chevron Corp., Dow Chemical, DuPont and Shell Oil.

“While the rest of corporate America recognizes and respects the diversity of their workforce, ExxonMobil continues to resist the most basic protections that should be afforded to all Americans,” said Solmonese.