Presidential LGBT Appointees Indicate Slow Progress In Our Rights

President Obama this week used his power of "recess appointments" to name an openly gay man, Richard Sorian, as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. The president can make such appointments without Congressional approval, although the Senate must later confirm them to prevent them from expiring at the end of the next Congressional session. What does this appointment tell us about the President's support for LGBT rights?

Sorian is the second LGBT appointee named through a recess appointment, as Lisa Keen notes at Keen News Service. He named lesbian law professor Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) through a recess appointment in March.

Sorian joins nearly 100 other openly LGBT presidential appointees, including over 20 who require Senate confirmation, a record number for any administration. Most of the ones requiring Senate confirmation, including the highest-ranking — John Berry, director of the United States Office of Personnel Management — were confirmed by the Senate.

Obama also named the first two openly transgender people to administration positions: Amanda Simpson, Senior Technical Advisor in the Bureau of Industry and Security, and Dylan Orr, Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Labor Kathleen Martinez in the Office of Disability Employment Policy.

LGBT appointees do not in and of themselves, however, indicate administration support for LGBT rights. Not all LGBT officials will have the power to influence LGBT rights as part of their regular duties. Not all will agree on how to move forward with those rights. No one person alone can make policy.

At the same time, though, visible LGBT appointees indicate a level of comfort with LGBT people and an understanding that they may act in ways inclusive of LGBT rights. It is a long way from that to full administrative support for LGBT equality — and many in the LGBT blogosphere and elsewhere are correct to be critical of the administration's slow progress on LGBT rights. But I'd rather have an administration full of LGBT appointees than not. Let's hope the Senate moves to confirm the recess appointments.

Photo credit: The White House http://gayrights.change.org

by Dana Rudolph

August 20, 2010