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Yesterday a federal judge ruled that banning gays from the military is unconstitutional under the first and fifth amendments. President Obama had campaigned on repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and lifting the gay ban, but he stayed silent on a plan for repeal throughout the first year of his presidency. Then, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa) started working to get the votes for repeal himself. When he was one vote shy of passing complete repeal with a non-discrimination policy, the President decided to get involved.
Now, we have a bill that sucks.
The current bill is waiting for the Senate to take it up, hopefully before the election. Otherwise, it may not even get passed and we will be stuck with the policy until we get 60 70 75 votes – whatever the new bar will be for getting things through the Senate. Democrats aren’t getting this done, and yesterday, the GOP quite possibly ended the policy.
And I’m just stunned.
It wasn’t enough to just stay silent on the California and Maine ballot initiatives, and it wasn’t enough to stay silent on the Prop. 8 trial while the other side was using the President and Democrats’ words against those fighting for equality. It wasn’t enough to have David Axelrod go on TV and say that the President still doesn’t support same-sex marriage, after a Reagan and Bush-appointed judge ruled that ban unconstitutional. It wasn’t enough to just sit idly by while half the GOP is making their support for same-sex marriage known and not only that, but they’re working with AFER and other groups to stop the government punishment of banning marriage for gays.
No, none of that made the Democrats stop and think that maybe they should say something. Now, the Log Cabin Republicans may have just overturned the ban on gays in the military. So, I ask again, Democrats, what are you doing? . . .
Last I checked, there’s an election coming up. Democrats should maybe consider the possibility that it looks quite bad to let Republicans beat you on LGBT issues, of all things, given their history of outright hostility and hatred toward the LGBT community. This is a party that was still pushing statewide same sex marriage bans just four short years ago. Are you really going to hand gay rights victories over to them?
Someone needs to step up and say something. I want the President to write an amicus brief in the Prop. 8 trial. Even if he stubbornly won’t change his position on same sex marriage, he should still tell the Court that he opposes discriminatory bans like the one in California. Democrats need to be out there talking about all of these cases. In the past few months, bans on same sex marriage were ruled unconstitutional, the Defense of Marriage Act was ruled unconstitutional and now Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the ban on gays in the military have been ruled unconstitutional. And not a peep from the Democratic Party on this.
Where are you? Why aren’t you saying anything? Why aren’t you taking the fight to the GOP? Why aren’t you countering their insane attempts to woo gay voter by passing pro-gay legislation and watching as they vote against it? You could win this fight if you did that. You could show that this is just a strategy for them – they hate gay people, they just see that it’s not longer a viable electoral strategy to keep hating us so openly. Democrats, for all their faults, don’t hate us. But sometimes it sure as hell seems like it when they pretend we don’t even exist.
What are they trying to accomplish with this strategy? Don’t they know how to fight?
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Scottie Thomaston (indiemcemopants) is a 26-year-old Alabama blogger who has written about politics on various blogs since age seventeen. A disabled, ‘out’ gay man, his principal themes have been LGBT rights, torture, NSA spying and the challenges of disability. His pieces have appeared on Daily Kos (where he also moderates a community series on disability), Firedoglake; and on his own blog, "Ignorance is…" The quality of his writing earned him a 2010 Netroots Nation scholarship from Democracy For America and a citation in the New York Times Opinionator column. He is actively building his career as a professional new media journalist.
You can find him on Twitter: @indiemcemopants
[photo: Lost Albatross via Flickr]
79 Comments
Excellent diary – recommended
Thanks! I’m kind of surprised I’m not seeing this argument on gay blogs today. I’m starting to become really embarrassed by their spinelessness. :(
That Democratic strategy of backtracking on core values doesn’t seem to be serving to Party too well. With the Republicans taking the Right wing, the Democrats take the Center and they get donations, but no moral high ground. Splitting the difference isn’t leading. Doing things half-heartedly isn’t impressing voters.
You are exactly right.
ESPECIALLY this: “splitting the difference isn’t leading.”
Exactly.
Great post. The questions in the last full paragraph could be asked equally appropriately in the context of many other issues that the administration (and the Democratic Party) have skipped town on: Social Security, health care reform, torture, Gitmo, etc.
The Democratic Party appears to have died before our very eyes.
And that is so strange because the other party is in the midst of a civil war. Democrats should be capitalizing on that, not lying down in defeat.
thanks and rec. indie
last night as I read of the ruling, I was thinking it ironic it was Repubs in power when Dr King’s birthday became a holiday, Americans With Disabilities Act and Family Medical Leave Acts were passed, Nixon gave us the EPA, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act, tepid but actual amnesty and a path to citizenship under Reagan
oy
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
excellent diary emopants, recommended.
It’s almost as if the Dems were “for gay rights” as long as they couldn’t actually get anywhere with the issue.
And Lincoln ended slavery.
I mean, c’mon, it’s time for Dems to step up.
That’s why it was so important for the President to speak out on California and Maine and to change his mind on same sex marriage. He’s supposed to be the country’s moral leader (for whatever that’s worth these days.)
It’s exactly like the GOP and abortion. The GOP supposedly hates abortion and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. So why haven’t they? The parties just lie to their base for votes. Politicians will be politicians.
Obama is just a shy guy……ain’t gonna speak up for anything until someone else thoroughly owns it. What a waste of effort. And the rest of the Dems? Same waste of space. I can’t get my own congresswoman to speak out on saving Social Security…..and she’s one of the ‘good guys.’ It feels hopeless.
It does but the only thing I can do is keep pressuring them, and I will. I have too much fight in me to just give up.
Obama is a homophobe–I thought that was clear by now.
The only position for Democrats in American politics is prone.
Well, that’s what establishment D’s believe, anyway.
I think it’s more like political homophobia as opposed to a real hatred of gays. He’s just to scared to deal with teh ghey publicly.
Great post. What are the Dems waiting for? I think they’re waiting for 105 votes in the Senate (and it will still be a near thing) and a desire to actually end DADT and DOMA. As you pointed out, if they went and fixed it, it would go away as a campaign issue.
And not only that but it would inspire the younger voters, who probably won’t turn out to vote this year.
iphelgix above is on the right track, IMO. D’s are probably waiting for a R majority in the Senate so that they can safely advocate for something that will never pass. Same old, same old.
Waiting for 105 Senate vote is right on.
But moreover the most disgusting display of kabuki on this issue,was with Daily Kos’ Net Neutrality convention this year……with Harry Reid proclaiming “He is gonna fight to end DADT”……No don’t laugh…They really do think Americans are stupid.
The Irony of the Log Cabin Republicans getting this done really IS astonishing.
Well said, Indie.
Just what their owners told them to… bugger all.
Good post, but with all due respect, why are you stunned? I am saddened, but completely unsurprised, to read about this latest “manuever.” Without meaning to sound rude, the “Citizens United” SCOTUS decision was a game-changer. Human citizens are starting to awaken to the reality of the paradigm shift.
This ain’t yo mama’s Democratic party, folks. BHO is a steath (albeit no longer so stealthy) rightwing Republican POTUS. The sooner you cotton on to this, the less surprising any of this will be.
That said, I support you fully in educational efforts like this and in attempting to put pols’ feet to the fire.
You can also vote differently (or chose not) next time around. Why bother voting for pols like this? BHO lied to us all during the campaign. BHO’s just not that into the “small” people, no matter what their gender preferences or other issues are.
Right after ronnie-ray-gunn beat Jimmy. They been spineless corp lackies ever since. I truely glad to see this site and others along with unions work at taking the party away from corp demos of today.
Welcome to the FDL front page, indiemcemopants.
Democrats are indeed champions, just not of the demographics which have traditionally comprised their base.
It’s our fault really, if every Dem voter past, present, or future would only become CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation the party will finally show us the love we deserve.
It’s painful irony. I don’t know how this has escaped the Democrats’ attention.
Thanks, now let’s hope they get the message.
Apparently they’re being told to sit down and shut up.
We’ve got two years to make the President change course. It’s too early for me to write him off.
Like abortion is for the Republicans, gay civil rights are nothing more to the Democrats than a fund raising opportunity issue. That’s it. Period.
The DLC really has ruined the country.
You’re right, and it sucks. Luckily things have changed so much that where gays once sat by and lamented this, we’re becoming increasingly active, interrupting fundraisers, shutting down streets, etc. We won’t let them ignore us this time.
I am entirely confident that BHO and the rest of the Democratic Party will protect one right of LGBT Americans, the right to remain second-class citizens.
The rest of the country is now noticing what the LGBT community figured out long ago: LGBT people have been dumped over the side once again by a group of careerists who all really do believe that they are the best thing ever to happen to the gay people of America. What they don’t realize is that the larger straight community surrounding each LGBT American as an individual is largely left-wing, largely pro-Democrat, and also may or may not vote in the upcoming election based on who is telling them what. LGBT Americans are unlikely to sugar-coat their (quite proper) anger at what the Democrats have done with their majority.
This is true. LGBT rights are so obviously a civil rights issue to younger people now that there is no alternative but to change.
amen, brother indie
…don’t ever invite a vampire in to your house silly boy, it renders you powerless
Yep, it’s folks like the DLC who give Faustian bargains a bad name…
Count most of the Ds and any number of the issues businesses that pose as political action groups in that corner. Probably just as true for the Rs as well. Even Barney Frank said flat out that the only way to get Ds to work on this issue was to forget protests and start kicking up the payoffs masked as donations.
As far as Team Obama goes on this issue, and nearly all others, they spread ambiguous lefty sounding words but on every crunch they weasel over as far right has they can safely go. Sometimes, like on torture as state secrets they go farther than is safe. And then the sycophants (read obamabots) remind us all that the other side – if there really were one – is always worse.
Yeah and younger people are coming out as gay in higher rates, their straight friends or relatives see them struggling and hate it.
You just want a pony. /s
But the Dems are doing something: reminding everyone that they’re not Republicans (results may vary) and that Republicans want to privatize Social Security.
Other than that…
But you can admit that the Rs have done a better job of pushing their issue hard enough that abortions really are much harder to get than they were in the past. On the other hand the Ds do a bit of posturing on their hot button issues and then run back to the lobbyist gravy train.
This may be your WTF moment, Indie. Mine was the Kabuki dance on Health Care Reform. Glen Greenwald and Jane did a magnificent job reporting the truth behind the backroom deals and political posturing which explained how a “Democratic” Congress and White House sold ordinary Americans out to the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries. If enough of us “little people” have our WTF moments, maybe real change can happen.
In the immortal words of Victor Laslow of Casablanca – “welcome back to the fight”
The democrats are counting on the african american vote which has Obama’s approval, according to the latest Gallup poll at 88% .
Which is where Alan Simpson comes into play.
So totally true. The only thing that surprises me anymore is the fact that there are people who are still surprised when this President acts like a Republican. He is and he’s proved it to us on numerous occasions. There is no issue too big or too small to use as an opportunity to spit squarely in the eye of his Progressive base. He and the people he’s appointed despise the Progressive wing of the party and have done everything within their power to neutralize it. We need to find and back REAL Progressives as candidates and quit pretending that the existing corporate parties have anything to offer us. They will both use us when it’s convenient, and the moment they’ve got what they wanted from us, they’ll both treat us like idiots.
Haha I had to check and see if I was on the right blog for a minute. :P
LOL Dems just want to cut it drastically.
It’s definitely an embarrassing time to be a Dem. :/
Speaking of Jane, I’ve been here like two weeks and haven’t seen her around at all! What’s up with that?
“Democratic party, what are you doing?”
Why, following Preznint Barack Obama’s example of hiding under our desks and resting after doing rehab on the republican party!”
Sorry, he’s rendered himself totally irrelevant.
I said this earlier in another post – this is what happens when you campaign like Bobby Kennedy and govern like Ronald Reagan.
Which is where Alan Simpson AND THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT WHO PICKED HIM TO CO-CHAIR THE CATFOOD COMMISSION…come into play.
There! Fixed it! :o)
Even worse, he is now the one we must protect ourselves against.
Watch the FDL front page. She often has a post or two a day and occasionaly drops into other threads. Hasn’t made an appearance today as best I can tell.
I’m missing my daily dose of Jane as well…hope she’s doing good. She’s earned a well deserved vacation, sipping drinks with umbrella straws on a beach, if that’s what she’s been up to. Something tells me she may be overworking on a project though.
Hey, Indie — aren’t you the one who just a day or two ago was telling me how the Dems aren’t all bad, how you still support them, etc?
Get a clue: they’re all fuckers. Every single one of them. They all need to be replaced.
As long as you cling to the fantasy that they (esp. President Pinocchio) can be pushed to do anything progressive, you’re in for nothing but bitter disappointment.
Congrats on another great post and on your front-page placement, my brother. Pretty soon you’ll be too famous even to talk to the likes of me. ;-)
On the topic of the post, my impression is that Obama and the DC Dems are hoping against hope that the courts will pull their chestnuts out of the fire on LGBT issues. If Obama & Co. can keep slow-walking everything from DADT repeal to DOMA, the federal judiciary might just administer the lethal injection for them.
ENDA will be the only thing the courts can’t do. But really, what can we expect from this crew when they have supermajorities in both houses and can’t even bring ENDA to the floor? I mean, for God’s sake, it came up for a Senate vote back in the 90s when the Republicans were in control, and IIRC, it failed by one lousy vote. Now we have close to 60 Democrats in the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” and we can’t even get Reid to bring the bill up. Spineless doesn’t even begin to describe these folks.
well, per the latest over at Big Orange, she and Grover are honeymooning in between tea parties X~o
Newsflash – they will always BE fuckers. Angels aren’t necessarily attracted to power and elective office.
So here’s the thing that Sirota reminded me:
You can never, ever stop demanding, because when you stop, there’s nothing for the power to concede.
She’s workin’ workin’ workin’
Spineless would be about fear, which seems unlikely. Duplicitous seems a bit more accurate. It seems they often only act when there is a serious chance of lobbyist cash. Everything not involving pay for play is kabuki.
thank you for reading the Great Orange Satan, cbl, so I don’t have to.
sincerely, you have a thicker skin than I do.
I have to say as a Gay man it was a SHOCK to have a group I have ridiculed for years be the ones to get something done. I remember joining in on the mocking when they opened the LA office. Thats probably the very place they are HQ’d. So as a gay the irony is not lost on me at all.
ok, i just saw lousi ck’s new stand up movie “Hilarious” which has a long bit on how words like “hilarious” are overused, but THIS STORY IS HILARIOUS.
The GOP has literally snatched and neutralized a major Democratic campaign issue. You won’t see any national campaigns on this, but you can bet there will be targeted outreach. “while the democrats dithered, while Obama defended the policy in court and on tv, it was the republicans who stood up for YOUR rights.”
I’ll bet we see more of this.
Well in the 1960 presidential race, many blacks supported Nixon over Kennedy. In fairness, Nixon had a strong civil rights record (and had been a member of the NAACP since the 40′s). But it was Jack Kennedy’s phone call to Martin King, locked in the Dekalb County jail, and then soon after Bobby Kennedy convincing local (Democratic) officials to release King, that made all the difference. By their actions, the Kennedys swung the African-American vote strongly for the Democrats.
Interesting, there are two posts at HP that would seem to contradict each other about the LCR: here and here. The latter would seem to be a Stepford Dem. I am amused to see the duck-and-cover democravens lose their cash cow because they weren’t paying it any attention and it wandered off.
Fixed it for you, thought it was more inclusive ; )
Look at how Obama has handled that crazy “pastor”s threat to the country? Now there are riots in Kabul.
The guy can’t don’t anything without a poll to tell him what people are thinking and then, not do it anyway.
To allow some cracker pastor with a congregation of 50 person to hold the US government hostage is insane. Now several other crazy pastors are getting into the act.
We’re gonna pay for this one.
The gays are no cash cows for the Dems, the Christains, myabe, but not the gays
I don’t know, gays have typically been an outsized donor group for the democravens. I just saw an article (can’t remember title or where I saw it or I would link) which talks about how the democravens are trying to massage this so that they can get gay money but are still able to appeal to bigots, by claiming the repugs won’t let them do it. My guess is that Obamarahma is in full panic mode with the profile this case gives to the LCR.
You know I would love to see the WH in panic mode, just to see if they can kick the energy level up a notch. Mostly they seem to hang out in a laissez-faire, who-cares, we-can’t-be-bothered mode and if you have the nerve to complain about the way they “do business”, the best they can do is flip you off and say f.u.
Honestly, it’s like they’re stoned, “Huh? ‘sup dude? you want somethin? whatev”. It’s insulting how ridiculous they are. The only panic I see anywhere is among rank and file Dems tearing their hair out trying to figure out what is wrong with the party leadership.
The WH isn’t panicking. They couldn’t care less. They know who they’re in bed with and they are comfortable with that relationship.
With all due respect Indie (and congrats on getting repeated frontpage), are you sure you’re not in some DLC groundhog day?
This is the third straight post where you wonder why the dems are not doing the right thing.
Answer: they don’t WANT do any of that gay/liberal/progressive stuff.
And there is no cavalry on its way, and no, the dems will not change their way.
Seriously.
You know, the past two years have put a different perspective on Rick Warren giving the inauguration prayer. I remember at the time people like Karl Wolfson the openly gay host of Portland’s progressive morning show and Thom Hartmann saying this was a brilliant political move and extending a hand to the other side. From an optimistic view, I can see it. But from a realistic point of view, it now appears more like Warren represents Obama’s beliefs.
I’ll take ‘Nothing’, Alex, for a thousand.
We, our own selves, are the Democrats who must capitalize on the current split in the Repug party. Tea-partiers didn’t wait for their elected to do it for them. I’m embarrassed to say it but why must we look to the thoughtless teapartiers for the pattern of courage required to make a split in our own party?
We have a narrow window of opportunity. Right now. We need a platform as loud as the tea-partiers, but rational and justice-minded. So that when 2012 comes along, we have an established voice.
Let both parties break in half so that we can establish choice once again.
It’s not nothing. Not nothing at all. It’s subterfuge. Don’t let them off so easy.