I just penned a rather long piece on AMERICAblog Gay about the latest evidence that the Obama administration is willing to outright ignore laws with which it does not agree, unless of course the victim of the unjust law is gay.
I think if you read the piece, you'll see many a Democratic constituency depicted. It's not just gays this is happening to. It's happening to all of us, on practically every issue. Perhaps it's time we all embraced our own commitment to "Don't Ask Don't Give."
Here's a snippet of my piece:
Via this blog, Joe and I have raised over $300,000 for Democratic candidates and causes (the exact figure is on ActBlue). Our allegiance to the party cannot be questioned. But at some point you have to ask yourself why you are helping put politicians in office who don't keep their promises, who don't put a high value on your own humanity. As Democrats, we routinely mock gay Republicans for supporting politicians that doesn't see them as fully human. We make perhaps too harsh comparisons to Jews who would be Nazis, and blacks who cozying up to the Klan. But how can we look at gay Republicans with a straight face, as it were, and tell them that they're selling out when our allegiance to our own party is not equally contingent on a basic respect for our own humanity?...
Our party is stuck in the past. And so, unfortunately, is much of the leadership of our community. How else to explain why Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, attended a hastily arranged Oval Office meeting intended to give the President political cover following the DOMA brief fiasco? At the time, Solmonese told Michelangelo Signorile that when the president calls, you come running.
No, his dog comes running.
The leader of the largest gay civil rights organization in our country, when asked to provide political cover for an incredibly homophobic act, does not come running until and unless he exacts a good pound of flesh in return. And a commitment to speak at an HRC fundraising dinner is not the quid pro quo we had in mind. Too many of the old gay guard seem incapable of fighting today's battles. They're too accustomed to the old days and the old ways, when simply being acknowledged (oh my God, he spoke to me!), or invited to the table (regardless of whether dinner was actually served), was enough. It didn't matter what we got out of the deal, so long as the new guy beat us less than the old guy (sure he keeps breaking his promises, but at least he's not ReaganBushMcCainPalin!). We promise to be good, and to accept whatever scraps were thrown our way.
