It’s not a definitive statement. But at this point, it might as well be one, at least for the time begin.
While campaigning for America’s highest office, Barack Obama told prospective voters he would, without a doubt, repeal the discriminatory policy we know as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. His assertiveness on the subject was profound; his no-nonsense approach, so appealing.
Gays continued rallying behind a person they expected to begin getting the government to treat them equally when, before Obama’s inauguration, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took questions on the administration’s s transition website. The answer to whether the incoming president would repeal DADT? “You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much,” he wrote. “But it’s ‘Yes’.”
Fast forward to March, when Defense Secretary (and Bush administration holdover) Robert Gates backtracked on his new boss’ stances; Gates said the repeal would happen “down the road” because “that dialogue [to repeal DADT] though has not progressed very far.” Huh. That didn’t sound like the imminent repeal Obama had us thinking about.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
And for the definitive “WE JUST GOT FUCKED” moment? When Obama’s National Security Adviser General James Jones said “I don’t know.” As in: I don’t know if DADT will be repealed.
Why doesn’t Obama just suspend investigations of gays in the military? That’s the “stroke of the pen” tactic DADT opponents say Obama could do right now, while getting Congress to repeal the code. Says Jones: “Welp, maybe that’s an option that eventually we’ll get to, but we’re not there now.”
Jones’ statement, and his bullshitting through a response, is not an accident. He is not speaking out of turn. He was appearing on This Week With George Stephanopoulos representing his office. And it can only be inferred — because that’s how these things work — that his words are part of a coordinated backpedaling on Obama’s campaign promise.
The position Obama’s top officials have taken are a mere one degree shy of Obama completely reneging on his guarantee to the gay community and the military. And does anyone find it shameful that Obama himself won’t address this issue, and is letting his military officials spread the word?
John McCain also stopped by Stephanopoulos’ show to answer the same question. McCain’s stance? He wants a “thorough review” from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on repealing the policy. i.e.? “I’m a giant coward.”
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents a number of gay service members — including Dan Choi, who you’ll be hearing from on Queerty very shortly — has this message for Obama: “SLDN had hoped this president would offer leadership, not give in to some throw away study or commission. The right approach would be a presidential working group that focuses solely on implementation and reports back to the president with recommendations within 90 days.”
Dabq
Just curios, who are those gays rallying behind POTUS? Certainly not any of the ones who post here. That said, he should repeal it, as to why anyone would want to join the military is beyond me to fight useless , unwinnable wars, although my dad was in the military, I say let them serve without this silly policy that was started by who, was it Bill Clinton?
And, as I have said before, you’ll have someone new to pick next election with a more gay friendly GOP.
Viktor
“It’s not a definitive statement. But at this point, it might as well be one, at least for the time begin.”
Then you are assuming…please find something “definitive” to write about.
epluribusunumjk
If the GOP dumps the religious right and becomes more tolerant of gays, I won’t be voting for Obama again and may switch to the GOP (or a third party candidate).
He outwardly lied to us. At least John McCain was straight up with our community.
Chitown Kev
All the backtracking on this particular promise by the Obama Administration is getting disturbing.
red phone
Seriously, Queerty. You have a heading over this called “Near certainties” and then soften it with “it’s not a definitive statement.” So who’s backpedaling again?
But of course it’s not a definitive statement. This post is just a pissy rant, and it’s loaded with assumptions (“he is not speaking out of turn”), and finally offers no interesting analysis or constructive call to action. What do you want? For us to be pissy and illogical like you?
I often read this blog only because I like to waste time. Well MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Chitown Kev
@Dabq:
Given the economic downturn, I suspect that there a few gay people who would serve simply for income reasons.
Mike
I thought Obama joking about gay marriage Iowa on Friday was in really poor taste considering how silent he’s been on the whole issue until now. This is a civil rights issue and he’s making jokes. It’s like joking about lynching. He’s already backtracked on his Armenian genocide support, and funding for clean syringes. I don’t think he’s going to come through with any meaningful LGBT support.
We need more LGBT politicians.
The Gay Numbers
This is political speak. Unfortunately, Queerty is right. They are back peddling on their language in a way that allows them to now fully ignore the issue. Anyone not able to read this as political speak does not understand politics and its language. No one will ever say no, they will simply back peddle and create wiggle room so they can make an escape.
TANK
His futile bid for the rightwing in an effort to seem “bipartisan” (as he defines it, of course) is going to backfire. I know it’s early, but FDR (the favored comparison) did quite a bit more than Obama in his first hundred days. He’s a politician, though…you have to make him need it somehow, because doing the right thing for its own sake has no place in the mind of a politician.
jj
America is such a giant mass of hypocrites, I’m so ashamed of it sometimes. Why laws and policies of the country directly marginalize gay people and their families, particularly the gay soldiers, is unbelievable. No gay person should feel like they have to serve a country that actively belittles them, as if we have to prove our worth first.
roger
obama said whatever he needed to in order to get elected. get used to this kind of duplicity.
orpheus_lost
I’m willing to vote for a politician based on his promises – once. After that they have to earn it through their actions. I have two very simple demands of Obama that must be fulfilled in order for me to not actively support his opponent. One, push for the repeal of DADT and DOMA, which he promised to do in his first campaign. And two, push to rescind the Military Commissions Act of 2005, which he also promised to do. If he can’t be true to his word on these two things then he is not worthy of the office and whoever runs against him will have my support.
Mike
@Dabq: Yes, Clinton did come up with DADT. But remember it was an improvement from previously. And it was because Clinton was forced into compromise by a much more homophobic Congress, from his original hope of creating a military where gays and lesbians could serve openly.
Clinton took a big gamble trying to take on the Pentagon over GLBT issues as soon as he entered office, and I believe his heart was in the right place. But in the end, the Pentagon believed that he (a draft dodger) overstepped his bounds and had no business telling them how to deal with gays and lesbians, and a homophobic, 90s era Congress did not want to touch gay issues with even a 100 foot pole. In the end, both they forced Bill into a compromise, and DADT was born.
Bill Clinton’s attempt to open the military with homosexuals cost him dearly, it ruined his relationship with the Pentagon, which had only just begun to repair before the Lewinsky scandal hit. Future military issues on which Clinton seemed to fail–including the military’s refusal to interfere in Rwanda or sign the Landmin Ban Convention, were actually an indirect effect of the respect Clinton had lost among top military brass, for even bringing up the homosexual issue. Ask any security policy scholar and most would agree!
Clinton did try. We should give him more credit than many commenters on this blog like to. Remember the 90s were an entirely different climate.
Lee
SURRENDER FRIENDS OF DOROTHY! The Great Hope for Gays has caved to a handful of military dinosaurs; imploded, turned inside out even, torn his many written explicit promises to LGBTs into little pieces and swallowed them. Why is anyone swallowing the fantasy that he’ll change his mind again?
But at least we now have a name and face to replace “other toxic rat in the White House besides Rahm Emmanuel.” Jones, who, by the way is a decades-long bosom buddy of both McShame and Gen. Peter “Gays are immoral” Pace, comes from a long line of national security advisors with minimal integrity like Rice [“yes, we desperately need Arabic linguists but we gotta keep firing the gay ones”], Powell [“being gay is a choice…don’t believe your memory and history books—Clinton never asked me to change the gay ban…WMD”], and Kissinger [“the Vietnam War is not a matter for conscientious objection…ad nauseum”].
And as a former commandant of the Marines, Jones is merely continuing the history of the Corps bigotry that extends from his 1941 predecessor Thomas Holcomb saying he’d rather have 5000 white Marines than 250,000 black ones to Pace and the retired and retarded Marine brass who signed the recent “We Still Hate Fags” letter to the President to the shores of Tripoli. Should we be thankful that in Jones’ dishonest shuck and excuse jive this morning he didn’t echo Holcomb’s other comment about blacks by saying that gays are “trying to break into a club that doesn’t want them”?
Now gays who still believe there’s a sanity clause in the administration will try yet again to find an some other explanation for “repeal DAD” having transformed to “change” and then to “rheostat” this morning, ignoring Gates’ “IF we repeal” and Gomer Jones’ “I don’t know.” Just what part of “in a pig’s eye…it ain’t gonna happen” don’t people understand?
If you get nothing else, and are a gay person with ONE SUBATOMIC MOLECULE OF SELF-RESPECT, get that you are betraying your gay brothers and sisters in the military by making this about OBAMA! HIS legacy, HIS image, HIS HOLY NAME when it’s about those gay soldiers in the DADT virtual body bags that are stacking up higher and higher the longer he’s President [over a 100 so far by recent discharge averages] AND the damage their loss is doing to our national security…you know, that thing Massa Jones is supposed to be in charge of. WHY are you defending HIM, or any nongay person doing nothing for us, when you should be fighting for THEM?
Save your hero worship for comic book conventions. This mere mortal must be judged by his own words:
“Change will not come if we wait for …some other time.” BARACK OBAMA, Feb. 5, 2008.
Anthony
You make it sound like it would be that easy. Just a stroke of a pen and all the problems in the military with the gays will go away. It just isn’t that simple. Now we’re reporting the statistics of how many people are getting discharged under DADT but do you understand that when DADT gets repealed we will be reporting the statistics on the number of gays in the military getting beat up or worse dying.
BTW why is this blog suspiciously becoming a gay political conservative leaning blog. All you talk about is the Log Cabin Reps. and what Obama hasn’t done in the four months he has been in office.
fem in the city
You’re right, Queerty.
Everywhere I look people are waking up to Obama’s horse shit lies.
It boggles the mind that anyone would choose to join the military anyway. Everyone bitched about the War on Terror for 8 years and BO promised to bring the troops home and end the war but left the third of them there, the war is still going on and he’s escalating the war in Afghanistanm but everyone loves and supports W’s war because it’s BO.
Carrie Prejean said she’s against gay civil rights in a much nicer tone than 0bama ever did, but she’s the Cunt and the Bitch and Barack is the Messiah.
“Obama-Obama-Obama”
Hypocrites.
Lee
Anthony, Anthony. Were you in the loo at the Barack Davidian compound when they passed out the fag focus group approved excuses for his not keeping his promise to even TRY to repeal DADT?
Really, recycling the Repugnant’s rusty 1993 talking point that ending the ban would result in “gays in the military getting beat up or worse dying” is a new low, even for an Obambot.
Chitown Kev
@Anthony:
Oh, jeez, the President is backtracking on his promise to end DADT. Stop rationalizing it, Anthony.
Yes, the bulk of the legislation has to go though Congress to sign (I’ve read varying reports on what Obama, specifically, can do through excutive order). He can use the bully pulpit to champion the legislation. He can introduce the legislation to repeal DADT himself.
And I don’t see much on this site at all about the Log Cabins, other than how they’ve sold us down the river for the contents of their clutch purses(other than what seems to be taking place in New York).
Ali
Keep up the pressure. Why do American gays always seem to be so resigned to stuff like this? “Near certainties”? That is so infuriating.
Gays have to be DEMANDING that Obama not fire gay people every day, which is what he is currently doing as Commander-in-Chief. Pressure the White House and every member of Congress, even the Republicans. Even if you buy the argument that Obama needs the political capital for other priorities, with all due respect, you can understand that in private, but you will lose this battle if you let up for a second publicly, if you give everyone the impression that you are willing to cede equal rights – which articles like this do. Equal rights can not be negotiable if you want to win.
The polls are on our side. The people are on our side. The politicians are so isolated – and lack political will to challenge the old, white military establishment – because it hasn’t been conclusively demonstrated to them that the polls and people are on our side, and that the gays can’t be waved away, and that they will be in their faces every day until justice is done. It has to be demonstrated for them, and that is what lobbyists do. YOU are your own best lobbyist – and you are a voter. Where are YOUR representatives and Senators on this issue? Did you write McCain yesterday when he went on nationally televised political show and said he thought it was just fine to fire gays from the military? Why not? Why not write the other 99 (or 98 until Franken is seated) Senators too?
“Near certainties” my ass – change the certainties. That is what activism is about. And if your rights are being denied and you’re not an activist, you’re an idiot. And if you think it’s fair for people to deny your rights in the name of political expediency, grow a spine and see a therapist about that self-esteem. Are you citizens of America or not? Act like Americans for Christ’s sake – be pushy as hell to get what you’re entitled to. You ARE entitled to equal rights, as citizens. What kind of undemocratic place would the world be if Americans had sat down and said it was a “near certainty” that the British were going to raise taxes without representation, so might as well just give up, so sad the world isn’t working the way it should? You are a citizen and you are being denied equality, right now, this minute. Smarten up and get organized, even if it’s just you and ten friends. Send buckets of mail, make phone calls, email, hell, Twitter half of them. Target Senators and members of Congress – there are already 100 Representatives in favour of repealing DADT, and I bet there are another 150 who are on the fence and just too chicken to pick a side on this. Throw fundraisers and create action alerts on every issue, every news story. Cultivate straight allies – seriously, who supports people getting fired because they’re gay? Not even a lot of fundies. Basically, organize in every district and be the lobby you want. If it’s on a shoestring and funded by bake sales and wet tshirt contests at your local bar it’s still better than nothing. You don’t have to wait for HRC or your state lobby to tell you what to do. Do it yourself and do it now.
Signed, a concerned queer from Canada – where gay rights did not magically just happen because we’re oh so progressive and tolerant – everybody worked really hard in the face of what seemed like pretty steep odds, a lot of the time.
petted
It could be they’re trying to avoid the far right from conflating marriage equality with DADT – that is if the make any moves on DADT now with the recent developments in America’s state of equality that either the right will try and torpedo a DADT repeal cause they can’t do squat about Iowa and Vermont (NH and ME they still can throw a wrench among the gears) or that by bringing up DADT now the administration would face an increasing pressure to take a definitive stance on marriage equality and DOMA. Not saying it’s definitely one of these but for the president to accomplish some of the things on his agenda it helps to be able to set the topics of conversation and given the developments in equality lately and the progress made in Hate Crimes legislation the far right and Faux News, (pun not a typo), the religious redunkulouses (they’re anything but ‘right’) may well have seizures (and who’d clean that up?) – not defending or complaining necessarily here just observing… oh and definitely mocking the elephants but that’s a different ball game. I think people are focusing too much on Obama right now to get the ball moving on DADT and DOMA we need to put more pressure on Reid and Pelosi as nothing will get signed without congress getting off its ass – though sadly since the Dems are going after healthcare reform right now it may take a while for them to hear us. But as far as turning up the pressure well you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and you can’t get something done in congress without getting it past Pelosi and Reid.
mick
Good I hope he focuses his energy on Blacks, Hispanics, and Women….let the fags go to the GOP because I am tired of hearing them bitch about it.
I’ve yet to see one article one here about how the economic crisis is taking its toll on Gay people and their families.
petted
@mick: Have a care, if you throw rocks you’re likely to get cut up by the glass.
MickNeedsCorrecting
@mick:
http://www.queerty.com/mad-gay-skillz-landing-a-job-20090407/
http://www.queerty.com/jobs-got-one-lost-yours-share-your-story-20090306/
http://www.queerty.com/whats-in-the-obama-budget-for-gays-20090327/
http://www.queerty.com/in-tough-economic-times-lesbian-nightlife-leads-the-way-20090227/
http://www.queerty.com/friday-forum-can-gay-rights-save-the-economy-20090227/
Chris
God you’re so fucking annoying.
Captain Freedom
FOR THE LAST TIME! IT IS NOT OBAMA’S JOB TO REPEAL DADT! IT’S CONGRESS!
CONGRESS IS WHERE THE POWER LIES IN THIS COUNTRY! IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS LAW (and we all do) THEN CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES! CALL SPEAKER PELOSI AND TELL HER SHE’S A STINKING C**T FOR SAYING GAY ISSUES WILL BE ON THE BACK BURNER!
Captain Freedom
By the way, we need to quit acting like fucking victims all the time. We need to start acting like WARRIORS. We need to go forward and say we refuse to be treated like second class citizens. We need to stop begging for straight sympathy and start making it clear to America that if they continue to trample on our rights we will strike back with boycotts, PEACEFUL protests, labor strikes, and political isolation!
That’s right! We should politically isolate ourselves. Create a Gay Third Party. We can call it the Circuit Party or whatever.
The point of this would be to have all gays and lesbians vote away from the Democrats. In the 2012 election, President Obama would be forced to act on LGBT Equality along with all of Congress or risk losing our votes and cash and therefore risk losing more seats to Republicans from gay defection.
We shouldn’t stop there. We should isolate ourselves next time other minority rights come up. We should isolate ourselves when unions go to bicker and bitch even though their members supported Prop 8. Once they realize how much they need us, they will beg for us to come back!
Mikey Garcia
Congratulations, Queerty… That headline just turned you into The Drudge Report
Jeff
Blah
Remember guys its not REALLY “Queerty” anymore. Its a comination of “Queerty”, “Jossip” and the other two sites that folded all into one.
As for DADT. Put into perspective the Economy, Health Care, The Repeal of DOMA (Which I HOPE is coming) is just a bit more important and should be handeled first.
Paul
this blog just keeps going down hill….. to bad it used to be OK….Oh well Maybe the tag “gossip” is needed, pathetic!
Chitown Kev
@Captain Freedom:
I completely agree with the idea of a LGBT third party. Why vote for the Democrats time and again when they back away from our issues when the chips are down.
Now since I am another minority, I would not favor your other suggestion, naturally.
Mark
@epluribusunumjk:
Excuse me. You would never consider voting for any of those punks in the GOP. If you did you have to immediately give up your gay card. There are authorities, you know.
osocubano
So, don’t enlist.
dgz
well, i’m glad that Queerty is putting the spotlight on this important issue and isn’t just focusing on marriage anymore.
BUT, i find it disconcerting how poorly this writer understood the posted interview. he wasn’t backtracking, he was trying to make the difficulty of the undertaking clear. Obama doesn’t want to be Bush, and just rule via executive orders.
now, i’m not defending him — i’m 100% skeptical of all politicians, and i’ll believe it when i see it. but it’s plain silly to immediately attack him (or rabidly defend him) for this. after, dadt took a long time to set up; it may take awhile to dismantle.
hardmannyc
there’s nothing in what you posted to say Obama isn’t repealing it. You are truly ridiculous and please don’t call yourself a “journalist.”
timncguy
Don’t worry, don’t worry. The Obama Admin has a PLAN for gay issues. We know this because Joe Solomonese (sp) met with the Obama Admin a week or so ago and came out of that meeting ASSURING us that there is a PLAN. A GOOD plan. But, it’s a SECRET plan. We’re not allowed to know what the plan is. Just Joe at HRC is allowed to know. That’s because everyone knows that we all trust Joe and the HRC so much that we will just believe anything he says when he tells us to just be patient and calm down. The SECRET PLAN is on a ‘need to know’ basis and teh gays don’t need to know what the plan is for their joining the rest of the citizens as equals. But, really the secret plan is really great and when the secret plan is implemented we will all once again be signing the praises of our savior Obama.
Mark in Colorado
@mick: Go crawl under the rock you came from and die. As a Mexican-American I don’t need a slimy POS like you speaking on my behalf. As though blacks, hispanics, and women are somehow the only ones getting the brunt of the economic crisis. Are you really that stupid or just pretending to be?
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
61 years ago, when racism was not just socially acceptable but preached from pulpits, when blacks & whites who married could honeymoon in jail, when refusing to hire, house, or serve blacks was entirely legal, when denying them the right to vote was tolerated, when buses, schools, restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, churches, cemeteries, swimming pools, and water fountains were segregated, when lynchings were not uncommon, when the Congress was controlled by Republicans, when 63% of Americans opposed racial integration of the military, when military rank and file and Pentagon leaders were rabidly opposed, when there was no bill in Congress for integration, and no history of academic research supporting it, when some of his closest friends referred to “niggers,” his own mother refused to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom, AND IT WAS AN ELECTION YEAR, Harry Truman ordered the military racially integrated.
Why is Commander-in-Chief Obama dancing to the bigots’ tune?
[img]http://www.leonardmatlovich.com/images/346_Button_flat.jpg[/img]
stevenelliot
How old are you guyz?? I am 42. Ive seen Regan, Bush 1, clinton, Bush 2, and now Obama.
The age of politicians making politically dangerous decisions died with Lyndon Johnson. Obama is NOT going to do anything for us until it wont damage him. The gay list of complaints DOMA, DADT, gay marriage, equal rights, etc… will not be addressed until (IF then) Obama’s second term.
Unfortunately, its the political game. He’s holding a carot in front of us so we’ll vote for him again. I’ll tell you all about it after a break from our sponsors. Figuratively, Gays are the friday cliffhanger in the political soap opera and we’ll have to wait until Monday, maybe even tuesday to get a plot resolution…… “Gays of Our Lives”
Lex
@stevenelliot: At least someone gets it. Hell I’m only 26 and I got it.
Not sure why anyone expects him to entirely flip the script and change everything so soon. It doesn’t work that way. Everything he wants to do cannot be done in even 8 years and he has to choose carefully.
stevenelliot
Oh and I think Joe Solomnese is the gay Neville Chamerlain of our time
stevenelliot
@Lex: Don’t get me wrong. I do NOT support Obama. He lost me with Rick Warren.
Chitown Kev
@stevenelliot:
LOL on “Gays of our Lives”. I expected ENDA, Hate Crimes, and DADT in the first term, though.
Ted B. (Charging Rhino)
Hmmmm, no repeal of DADT, no movement on ENDA, and the White House AND the Democratic Party-controlled Houses of Congress all oppose Federally-recognised gay marriage….someone remind me again why the G/L community supported Obama and the Democrats in 2008? You gave them all that money for what?
Come the 2010, and especially the 2012 Presidential, elections and the Democratic Party’s going to feed the G/L community the same “…support us or else” snake-oil pitch as in 2008.
Can you say, “…Suckers”?
Zakyluv
lol. This is what happens when fools can be kings. I was listening to the radio to hear a parody about barrack “I am Barrack! Im the Messiiiiiiiaaah!….Winter mornning, with my Teeelleprompter” i sat there wondering how anyone let this guy in. I live in a predominately black community and 90% of them admitted they voted him in JUST because he was black! i said” If color isn’t supposed to matter then why does it matter that he is the first black president?” All i got was silence… until one said “Damn i wish i hadnt voted this M******** in” that one guy is my husband.
Tony
Funny really. The writing has been on the wall for some time now.
1) Donny McClurkin
2) Rick Warren
3) God is in the mix…
4) Ignoring HIV related issues
The guy is an antigay douchebag. Many of us were fooled by his political sweet talk. We made him our saviour. Whenever he slaps us in the face we run back to him offering excuses and stating that he works in mysterious ways, and that he really really loves us underneath all the abuse. Right.
The Obamabots will find any excuse to continue their unmitigated Obama worship. Sad, pathetic, and in a way, kind of funny.
Stitch
Just a quick question:
I understand that my rights are at stake, blah blah blah, but is anyone else SICK AND TIRED of the stupid back and forth on this site re: Obama not showing the gays enough love??
I GET IT.
Some of you think he’s the devil incarnate, turncoat Judas who sold us down the river once he took office.
Some of you think that there are other forces at work, and that Obama at least doesn’t deserve 100% of the vitriol he’s being targeted with.
Can we PLEASE move on?
Hey Queerty! Write about something else! It’s all half naked men and Obama rants these days.
John K.
THIS IS NOT A COMPLICATED ISSUE!!!!!!! Repeal the policy and order the troops that they had better act professionally or they will be court-martialed. Why is this difficult, and why does George Steph so quickly agree that it is?!?!?!
boytroy
Oh so many have thought G.W. Bush spent his time destroying America and Obama would save it. Obama is here to finish the job G.W. began. America is in the middle of the greatest lesson the world will ever have. Opposites are not always opposites, just the same bullshit only a different color. Its not only gays that are being screwed over, its all of America and America has not seen anything yet. Think the economic crisis has hit bottom and the only way is up? Think again, you have not seen nothing yet. Think the war in Iraq will end anytime soon? It is only the beginning. Within 3 years America will be a land of mass poverty and inflation A military state and anyone with a place to go will be leaving and the rest will be clamoring to get out. Canada’s biggest problem will be dealing with illegal Americans who are seeking refuge, economically and politically within its borders. Americans will have difficulty traveling anywhere and will be forced to prove they have certain amounts of funds before they are allowed to enter most countries. All sounds absurd? 10 years ago all that has happened the last 9 years would have sounded absurd to most ears.
stevenelliot
@boytroy: I hope it doesnt get that bad. And trust me, Canada may have gay right, but I aint movin from southern california to Canada BRRRRR!
bobito
I’m surprised anybody thought Obama would attempt to do anything for the GLBTQ community in the initial stages of his Presidency. That was how DADT came into existence in the first place, when Bill Clinton promised to allow gays into the military in the earliest stages of his Presidency, and the conservative backlash was so intense that he had to backpedal fast. He never stopped backpedaling (see DOMA).
Anyway, here is Obama’s latest promise, from May 2009:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/08/obama-dont-ask-dont-tell/
It sounds good, but still doesn’t explain why he can’t suspend investigations of gays in the interim.
edgyguy1426
@Captain Freedom: I like your anger and enthusiasm. Keep the pressure on!
jms4liberty
He has lied about a lot. Transparency? No earmarks? Go over it line-by-line and cut government waste? Check the Libertarian Party, social liberal and fiscal conservatism. @epluribusunumjk: