"Or else we don't matter at all."

The answer to that is:

1. Our votes matter;

2. Our money matters.

Period. End of sentence. End of importance.

It's a much much BIGGER DEAL to have an in-person President Obama at the dinner, than a video Obama at the March. GLBTQ folks need to get a grip- who would talk to us these last 8 years under Bush-Cheny et al? We have to trust the guy, he is on a trajectory to fulfill his promises to us. His administration has had Pride Proclamations, new policies on State Department employees, etc. Things are moving in the right direction. I hear too many people who are anti- organizatins (but want the benefits they are fighting for) and those who think that we will get our entire agenda with the snap of the fingers. Well, although we deserve equality immeditely, our political process moves more slowly, and heh , we are giant steps ahead of where things were the day before Obama was inaugurated. WE have a friend in the White House, let's work with him.

"we are giant steps ahead of where things were the day before Obama was inaugurated"???? What planet are you writing from, Pete? Just put down the Kool Aid and step away from the keyboard! Fan Girl much?

You must have fallen asleep during the movie "Obama, Messiah for the Gays" last fall and just woke up not realizing the plot 180 that happened in the second reel.

ATTENTION: We don't need "a friend in the White House," we need a LEADER...which he PROMISED to be on our issues repeatedly. Virtually NOTHING is "moving," what you call great accomplishments have been, for the most part, reruns of what Clinton did [gay appointees, Pride proclamations, inviting faygolas to the White House]. He came to an HRC dinner bearing promises, too. Look how that turned out.

While you were still sawing logs, one would have thought by this June that if not the "leaders" then the "leading indicators" in the community would have had their ears unstopped and their eyes opened about what an invertebrate our self-proclaimed "fierce advocate" had turned out to be. Yet the very momentum of anger that frightened the White House into throwing together the "Stonewall celebration" at the last minute was almost totally narcotized by his, yet again, just sprinkling a bunch of pretty words on them like so much multicolored sugar granules on cupcakes. There was icing but there was no cake.

Now, clearly fearing being further damaged by the NEM the next day, he's descending briefly in a big pink bubble to work the lavendar crowd again. Maybe he'll actually bring with him a long overdue savory morsel, but my bet is that the lingering taste from the evening will be from his recipe for dessert: Pie In The Sky.

Maybe he'll take requests. If so, my suggestion is that the greatest Gay Icon [for some] since Judy go for that gay classic "Over the Rainbow" ... because that's where you'll find any likelihood that he's going to find his missing balls ..."it's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train, but far, far away, behind the moon, beyond the rain."

For those wide awake who care more about LGBT rights than perpetuating a personality cult, even if you're going to the dinner [I spoke to Frank Kameny today and he's going] there's still the DADT Protest at 2 Saturday afternoon in Congressional Cemetery [where Frank will also be]and the march and rally Sunday.

So much nonconstructive drama!

>

No President has gone to shill for an Olympics either. I guess some people/issues are more equal than others.

Boundless respect for you, Cathy, but let's recap on one subject alone:

Barack Obama, 11-29-07: "As president, I will work with Congress and place the weight of my administration behind enactment of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which will make nondiscrimination the official policy of the U.S. military. I will task the Defense Department and the senior command structure in every branch of the armed forces with developing an action plan for the implementation of a full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. ... America is ready to get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. All that is required is leadership. That work should have started long ago. It will start when I take office."

Barack Obama, 2-28-08: "Equality is a moral imperative. ... Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership."

Primordial DADT opponent & Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, June 2009: [DADT repeal] requires presidential leadership. This cannot be addressed successfully without that kind of leadership.”

To date, TWO messages "sent through the press" and one formal letter to Obama from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid begging for leadership [and, in one instance, for a freeze]. No change.

TWO letters from Cong. Alcee Hastings, the first with 76 cosigning members of the House, asking for a suspension of discharges. No response.

Hastings' effort to get a bill on Obama's desk for him to sign...the House version of the defense budget appropriation with an amendment denying funding for discharges.... withdrawn after pressure from the White House.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's plan to get a bill on Obama's desk for him to sign...the Senate version of the defense budget appropriation including an 18-month moratorium on discharges, endorsed by Harry Reid....withdrawn for lack of support [See Levin prerequisite above.]

Obama DOJ defended DADT in court using the same homophobic reasoning used to pass it in 1993.

Gay DADT experts who were asked to meet with Obama transition team last fall begged him not to keep Bush-appointed Secty of Defense Robert Gates because he had a record of defending DADT. He has continued both as Secty and obstructionist, grouped under warnings re repeal, "we don't have time," and "the sky would fall."

Other supposed subordinates to the Commander-in-Chief...Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Homophobia Adm. Mike Mullen, whose spokesman has formally denied that the anti-DADT article last week in the Pentagon publication he sponsors reflected Mullen's views, and National Homohatred Advisor James Jones...harmonize with Gates song and dance. Mullen has added a repulsive [and unexplained] new verse: potential damage to "military families" if out gays are admitted.

Finally, the president's post election indifference is no more transparent than in his pretense that he cannot act on his own...without ANY need for a bill from Congress on his desk...to stop the discharges that HE, himself, declared in June "weaken national security." It does not take a former Constitutional law prof, which he is, to understand the unequivocal legal authority given a president by the law passed in 1983: 10 U.S.C. § 12305 - “Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Laws Relating to Promotion, Retirement, and Separation”:

"Notwithstanding ANY other provision of law, during any period members of a reserve component are serving on active duty pursuant to an order to
active duty under authority of section 12301, 12302, or 12304 of this title, the President may suspend ANY provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to ANY member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States."

In short, the issue is not the absence of ways for Obama to act on DADT but the will.

Lets face it folks, HRC has the inside track on the administrations horse race. They set the agenda for him. Joe was at his side at every opportunity from the Democrat Convention in Colorado, to the present. They have his ear and they are keeping it and they are not going to share it for one second with anyone that they feel is to far left of their center position. That was more than obvious when people were invited to the White House tea party a few months back. Hey Becky, did you get an invite? I know I didn't and a lot of other "activists" didn't either who have been fighting for Transgender rights for many, many years.

The only time that anyone who is GLBT is going to get a conversation with President Obama, is when someone from HRC is glued to his side to remind him just how radical it is to take our word for anything that might be going on in a community center or a support group meeting.

Just once in my life, I would like to see someone like President Obama or his wife, offer to sit down with a local Transgender support group some Saturday night at one of their monthly meetings and listen to what is really happening to people in our community. Leave all the political hacks and hanger on's outside the door and let him sit down with a few Trans people to hear their stories about family, friends and jobs they used to have and see how he comes out of that meeting. No people like me or you or Donna Rose or Mara Keisling or the many others who tend to dominate a conversation. Just some common Trans0 folk who gather once a month to offer each other support in the hundreds of support groups across the country. Just once I would like to hear about him listening to them, instead of the ones who claim they represent them, like HRC or NGLTF or TAVA or GLADD or PFLAG. Even though they all try and do a great job and are dedicated to equality, as a person who has been to literally hundreds of those support group meetings, I know there simply is no comparison to hearing it direct from the mouth of those who are suffering and being directly discriminated against.

But, we both know that he is a busy man with a lot to do. If he can't talk directly to a group of thousands of us or a group of twenty of us, he will continue to go to places like HRC dinners where the money is and hope the word gets out through them that he really gives a hoot about the rest of us.

I hope that in the back of his mind, he remembers that good old Italian saying, "The fish always stinks at the head first."