The transition of power continues online, as the new administration’s website goes live, with a blog and an inclusion of gay & lesbian civil rights in its “agenda” section. The rundown: Expand Hate Crimes Statutes, Fight Workplace Discrimination, Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples, Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage, Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, Expand Adoption Rights, Promote AIDS Prevention, Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS.
Whitehouse.gov Gets ‘Change’, Includes Gays & Lesbian Rights in Agenda
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The Gay Numbers
I think if we pushed we could get ENDA and DADT before the end of the year. But, I don’t have any proof of this. Just gut.
InExile
We as a community should push for passing everything listed on his website. This is no time to just settle for DADT and ENDA like HRC seems comfortable with. We must push for full equality , anything less is just not enough! While our new President has extremely high poll ratings is the time to push for everything, that time is now. If we wait and be patient, we may miss the boat!
Leland Frances
Any regular Queerty reader is aware of my back and forth journey of opinion regarding Barack Obama.
But despite that, and recent events that only renewed my worst fears, because I remember watching on the evening news the violent attacks on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s on the days they happened, the screams, the blood, the police dogs, the tear gas, the tears, again and again; because I watched the 1963 Great March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech live, and the shattering annoucement of his assassination five years later, I could not help but tear up when a biracial man, Barack Obama, first appeared at the top of the stairs of the Inaugural Platform.
And far more than the dropping of the G-word in this or that speech, or administration appointments, or the invitation to a lesbian to ride a train, or Bishop Robinson to pray, this symbolic nailing to the White House door—BY the White House—a list of most of what it will take to finally make us first class citizens renews my HOPE about what is to come.
BUT, as Japhy elaborated below, none is likely to come without our continuing to DEMAND them. The Democrats may control both houses of Congress, but many of those Dems are no less homophobic than the average Repug. And many in the administration and party Obama listens to will, including some of the SAME people who said the same thing to Bill Clinton, will say to him, “don’t do this, Mr. President, it will cost us votes.”
I suspect that as goals on that multi-issue agenda fall short, someone will decide to remove it from the White House site, for it is, after all, a To Do List, a benchmark by which they are saying, “This is how you judge us; that upon which we are to be graded.” But even if it, or the LGBT part of it, disappears tomorrow, we must continue to remind them that it was there, and regardless, the injustices remain to be righted.
The Gay Numbers
My saying that we should push for DADT and ENDA this year does not equate to saying that we should abandon the other items. It was a point about where we should focus our efforts first based on available data. It’s a given, at least to me, that we should push for as much as we can get. But, it’s also a given, again, at least to me, that we need to concretely push for something now rather than waiting. Thus, the two choices right off the bat should be DADT and ENDA since they are things we can push, and I believe get if we resolve to push for them.
The Gay Numbers
by the way- can some here stop seeing villians in everything that someone says to you? Can you stop being so damn paranoid? can you not take a comment for what it means rather than adding your baggage to it? Thanks.
RichardR
@Leland Frances: Leland, I am glad to read of your renewal of hope paired with the reality that, as President Barack told us months ago, it is up to us to make it happen.
It is of enormous importance, this “nailing to the White House door” of not just its agenda, but ours. The word “marriage” isn’t there, but that will take another decade, I think, and a huge change, yes, in the definition of the word — we need to remove religion from the civil meaning of “marriage,” doing it as in Europe, South America, and elsewhere. Get married in a church if you wish, but you must get married at city hall. Wait until the O’Limbity’s catch on to that!
What a thrilling day this is. I’m on my fourth tissue and counting. I’ve tied red, white and blue ribbons to my front stoop light. How’s that for gay and patriotic?
lyssa
As long as we can keep the Mattachine from running over transpeeps, I will cheer.
But I still worry that the fag and dyke crowd will find a way to exclude trans women, men and others, despite the fact that so many of us ARE the dyke and fag crowd. Or, like me, both!
Sadly, it seems to be the gay way to preach equality and practice discrimination.
lyssa
@InExile:
Yes!