President Obama, Alice in Wonderland and The LGBT Community

President Obama, Alice in Wonderland and The LGBT Community

  

For the last several months, watching the Obama team come to terms with our epic struggle for freedom is like watching the 3-D version of "Alice in Wonderland." Their actions are so bizarre and out of touch and you encounter one strange character in the saga after another. No action seems to fit the reality of the times. Often you feel the only way to understand their policies on LGBT Americans is to be stoned, sit back and try to enjoy.

Clearly the entire Obama team just don't get it. They don't understand our goal. Nor do they really believe we are in the middle of an epic struggle for civil rights. They have checked out mentally and emotionally to the point where their actions aren't deliberately planned but because of them, we are just ignored. Not even being on their radar screen after decades for working within the Democratic Party is more shocking.

The most recent example is the Democratic National Committee video sent out of the President appearing to ask everyone except the LGBT community to come together to defeat the Republicans in November. Do I think this was deliberate? No, it just means they aren't even thinking of us when it come to grand coalitions. That is much worse. How can a video like that get out with person after person in the DNC and the White House reviewing the video? Didn't the LGBT high hierarchy and staff at the DNC who ask us for huge sums of money over and over again see it? Who can argue that we should not give one penny more to the Democratic National Committee?

Then all we have to do is travel down Pennsylvania Ave on this strange journey to the Department of Justice. Recently one of their lawyers attempted, with great pride, to show how they had improved their language in opposing LGBT rights. That would be like African-Americans in their past historic struggle being told they should be grateful that the "N" word wasn't used as their oppressors attempted to stop them from achieving voting rights. There is no sign that the Department of Justice is backing away at all from their proactive stances against our struggle in their increasingly number of briefs. There is no sign of personnel changes or accountability for their disgusting words and briefs.

Finally we can continue our "magical mystical tour" over to the White House. Really, it can't get any more bizarre than to find out that Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), our community's leading organization in this battle in fighting for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", was banned from meetings regarding that issue in the White House. More outrageously, our national LGBT organizations found that action to be appropriate and went to the meetings anyway. You have got to be kidding! The President, after twice mentioning DADT in his State of the Union speech, now seems to be a major obstacle in an increasingly sympathetic Congress to the repeal of DADT. Instead of leading with such strong words by the President, the White House is indicating that they want to wait until next year after they study us and see if we are fit patriotic Americans to serve. Can anyone make sense of this to me? The President publicly and movingly says one thing and then his staff actively proceeds to fight for delay.

Let's be very clear. Anyone who is for delays, given the likely results of this year's election, is fighting against us. They know and we know that the time is now. Actually the time was last year and this administration and our national organizations blew it.

Finally, in our tour of "Alice's World" we have to look at our own community. And I am going to say it: The Human Rights Campaign led by Joe Solmonese has let this community down. Last year they missed a year of incredible opportunity. They gave the President permission to delay in some sort of misguided grand political plan. They believed that the piecemeal approach of one piece of legislation this year and another maybe next year was the way to go. There is no question we should celebrate long and hard if ENDA does pass but that doesn't mean everyone is off the hook for another year or two until they feel like dealing with immigration issues, healthcare issues, repeal of DOMA and repeal of DADT. We have watched all LGBT issues stripped from the current healthcare legislation with hardly a ripple from HRC. We are about to watch the same thing happen with the Immigration legislation. We need full equality now and not over the next eight years.

At the height of this battle, for some reason Joe Solmonese traveled to London with the vote on ENDA, according to HRC happening in the next couple of weeks. Maybe there was a good reason or maybe Joe wasn't busy, but image is everything. This image leaves an impression of not leading and trusting too much in others. Joe: stay home, make this happen and restore our faith in HRC or get out. HRC has enormous resources and a history of some very talented people serving this community. They are increasingly on a broad scale losing credibility and faith in their ability to lead with an amazing number of people. If they are to remain an important and valued force, as I hope they will, they are at the stage where they must make significant visible changes or simply lose our confidence .

Welcome to "Alice in Wonderland."