June 29, 2009

Why the LGBT Community Can’t Give the Right the Satisfaction

  admin   2 Comments

James Hipps uses an article from the World Net Daily as justification fro cutting President Obama( aka Bush III) a break, claiming:

Doesn’t anyone remember the old cliche “change doesn’t happen overnight.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the GLBTQ community has wanted quite a bit, and wanted it all at once, there is a reason for that. We have gone decades without any real change from the White House. Change may not come overnight, but how long is too long and how long is not long enough? There are a few major problems with his rationale and logic.

1) Hipps assumes that Obama will do the right thing, all on his own if we just wait long enough. There is no basis for this at all. If anything, there is reason to believe the exact opposite. He, like many politicians made campaign promises that now he is in office, he is finding hard to fulfill, and so he is letting them go. I think he probably meant them all when he was campaigning. But now when it takes the real hard work, he has other agendas, and so our needs fall off the list of to do items.

2) Hipps assumes that change is always in the direction of what will be good if left to its own devices. The recent killing of Dr. Tiller and the state of a woman’s right to a legal procedure shows that to not be the case.  There are no so few doctors in the US who offer late term abortions, that while they are legal, they are still close to impossible to get. Even with laws in place, the anti-choice movement through murder, hostility, and treacherous means has limited the rights of women, but slowly, eroding their legal options.

3) Hipps uses a story in the World Net Daily as his justification. This is one of the most slanted conservative, blogs out there on the net.

We have waited long enough. Our military is less secure today than it has ever been. As we continue to discharge qualified, talented, committed young men and women, we continue to weaken our country. We have waited long enough.

Why the LGBT Community Can’t Give the Right the Satisfaction : Gay News from Gay Agenda – GayAgenda.com.

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  • http://www.gayagenda.com James Hipps

    I just happen to recognize that President Obama is the first and only president to actually address the concerns of the LGBT community, and take ANY sort of real action.

    I also happen to know the opposition we face is in President Obama’s face putting him between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately, he has to deal with all Americans, gay, anti-gay, Right, Left, Black, White, etc.

    The U.S. is involved in two wars, a severe economic crisis, a severe health care crises, there are over 1 million homeless children in the U.S. alone, and the list goes on. I just don’t think impatience is going to help anyone.

    I’m curious, tell me again, how did it work for people of color during the Civil Rights Movement? Were they given everything overnight? What about women? The suffrage movement was how many years ago, and women still don’t earn the same as men in similar positions, and if Obama’s competition had been elected, you know the woman from Alaska who didn’t support equal pay for equal work, what do you thing would be done for the LGBT community, with the exception of a lot of “praying away the gay”.

    It’s time for the LGBT community to wake up and realize, we have to do the work. It’s not going to handed to us on a silver platter, and no matter how hard Obama works, he has a great deal of opposition to overcome on LGBT issues. To expect overnight change is not only unrealistic, but selfish.

    • http://thomascwaters.com admin

      James,
      This isn’t really accurate to say “President Obama is the first and only president to actually address the concerns of the LGBT community, and take ANY sort of real action.” Clinton did that. DADT was “real action.” Granted it went horribly wrong from where his intention started, but that is exactly the point. By being so worried that he would fall into the same trap as Clinton, he seems to be creating it for himself. We act in our own best interest to hold him to his promises.

      Your argument is greatly weakened as well, by portraying gay activists as wanting it “all at once.” This is about as inaccurate and unfair as Americablog’s attacks on Obama which go way too far the other direction! If we cut out the hyperbole discourse, perhaps we can actually get somewhere.

      Additionally, you either make my case for me by pointing out the suffrage movement argument, or you display you own lack of interest in real dialogue (or both). The suffrage movement was explicitly a movement for the right to vote, and had nothing to do with equal pay. And, enough already about if McCain had been elected. He wouldn’t have been nor was he elected. This type of meaningless rhetoric simply muddies the discourse and adds nothing to it.

      I am all for the GLBTQ community realizing that we have to do “the work,” and part of that is holding our elected officials accountable for the promises they make. If you stop talking in these over-exageratd terms of ” all at once” perhaps you can be part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. The days of “us” vs “them” are done and gone. That was a political strategy that never really worked and Obama has more than anyone proven it to be no longer a valid paradigm.

      I personally doubt that there would be so much dissatisfaction with Obama at this point in his presidency if he hadn’t taken some very poor strategic steps. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to be supportive, but he is handling things all wrong. These are the big ones in my opinion.
      1) Rick Warren. Personally, I found this a good choice for the president, in his effort to bring everyone to the table. But strategically, he should have announced a gay positive invitee first to be able to pul it off.
      2) Silence on DADT, and the reporting that the pentagon wasn’t even working on it as a plan. He didn’t need to implement it, but he should have called for the military to come up with a plan.
      3) Taking anything gay related off of the White House website. He created false hopes when he put it all up. Then to have it come down as it did generated fear and a lack of trust. Very poor planning on the part of the White House.
      4) DOMA brief. This was mostly unfortunate timing, but given that his administration lost control of how the message of this was handled.

      You are an Obama apologist. That’s fine. You are entitled to your own opinion. so am I as well as others.