The Waiting Game

Andrew Sullivan has written yet another powerful piece on what it means to be gay in America. Not just for gay Americans, but for candidates who run for office with a so-called gay agenda. The gay community is used as fundraisers and grassroots volunteers; we're also used as weapons of mass distraction. Now we have Barack Obama who seems to be turning away from the gay community, after coming to us for our support, after telling us how he felt about the plight of gay Americans. I know he has a lot on his plate, but, as President, won't he always have a full plate? If so, does that mean the gay community simply goes back to our respective chairs and sits quietly while we wait for equality.

I am so tired of waiting.

Andrew Sullivan: ....With Clinton, we were the means to raise money. With Bush, we were the means to leverage votes by exploiting bigotry. Obama seemed in the campaign to promise something else. I listened to him in the early days and found him sincere about ending discrimination by the government; and I came to respect, while vehemently disagreeing with, his position on federal civil unions. He seemed genuinely distressed that gay servicemembers should be treated with contempt and persecution by their commander-in-chief, that gay couples should have to fight for basic human treatment - like entry to hospital rooms, or being able to stay in the same apartment as their late spouse, or forced into cruel separation by immigration laws that treat gay couples as threats, rather than assets, or if you had the temerity to survive HIV, being treated at the US border the way Jesse Helms always wanted people with HIV to be treated - like perverts and pariahs and threats.

We were courted by the Obama campaign;wined and dined. He told us that we matter, and asked us to come along, to join him, and make a Change in this country. He promised us that his Change would include changes for our community. But day-by-day that change is being asked to move to the back of the bus. Day-by-day we are told that what we want really isn't a priority right now.

Andrew Sullivan: And it's tedious to whine and jump up and down and complain when a wand isn't waved and everything is made right by the first candidate who really seemed to get it, who was even able to address black church congregations about homophobia. And obviously patience is necessary; and legislative work takes time; and there are real challenges on so many fronts, especially the economy and the legacy of war crimes and the permanently restive Iraqi and Afghan regions we are constantly in the process of liberating from themselves. No one expects a president to be grappling with all this early on, or, God help us, actually leading on civil rights. That's our job, not his.

But I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away.

I don't think he wants us to go away, i think he wants us to sit quietly and wait. Well, this summer marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the beginning of the gay Rights movement. So, it seems to me, we've been sitting patiently and waiting for about forty years or more.

I think that's long enough.

Andrew Sullivan: Here we are, in the summer of 2009, with gay servicemembers still being fired for the fact of their orientation. Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights.....Here I am, facing a looming deadline to be forced to leave my American husband for good, and relocate abroad because the HIV travel and immigration ban remains in force..... And what is Obama doing about any of these things? What is he even intending at some point to do about these things? So far as I can read the administration, the answer is: nada.

We're getting nothing, after being told that we matter, that we are part of America and that we deserve to be treated equally, we are getting nothing.

Andrew Sullivan: On gay servicemembers, the president is writing personal notes to those he has fired and intends to continue firing. Will he write some personal notes to the people with HIV he deports? Will he write personal notes to the gay spouses suddenly without a home or their late spouse's savings or forced by his administration to relocate abroad because he has no intention of actually fulfilling his promises?

Oh, we all can say that Obama is trying, but is he trying hard enough? Or is his administration simply taking on so many tasks that it makes it somehow palatable to tell the Gay Community to be patient? As a gay American, I'm concerned about the economy, bank foreclosures, the environment, terrorism, but I also have to wonder what happens if Carlos is hospitalized; what happens if one of us dies? What happens if one of us happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

the full Andrew Sullivan article is HERE