Pam writing at Pam's House Blend:
Our movement has wasted the opening months of this administration trying to denigrate voices from the outside who knew our civil rights were going to get backburnered because of 1) health care, 2) the endless military debacles, 3) all other progressive causes waiting in line that have been out in the cold for years. The only way to move ahead in the line when it comes to civil rights and a group -- LGBTs -- is to stop the glad handing and to have a plan, not fret over the gay netroots.
The bottom line is that LGBT rights are not seen by the vast majority of potential allies as worthy of moving up the action chain because of the baseless perception that we are a political liability for elected officials and not really hurting. The black tie gladhanding is not seen as any indicator that hardball politics is going to be played. These elected officials drained our ATM to get elected. They work for us. The shuffling and tap dancing time is over, people....
OK. I have to ask a question here. Where has Brian Bond, the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement (aka the LGBT liaison) been during all of this? He's nowhere in this piece and he's supposed to be the Obama administration's primary contact with our orgs all this time. (BTW, Brian never did get back to me about any further WH plans to interact with LGBT New Media/citizen journalists, as the WH has with other interest-group media. Take what you want from that. )
This does raise a broader, more structural problem about our connections to the White House, since there are allegedly so many pro-LGBT people on staff - what is has been done to facilitate action so that it didn't come to this point?
