‘Pro-LGBT Picket’ at Obama-HRC Dinner

If President Obama believes that his appearance at the HRC dinner this Saturday evening will magically mollify all within the LGBT community, he is sadly mistaken. Indeed, he should expect protesters outside the venue who are tired of nice words and no action - the hallmarks of Obama's approach to LGBT Americans. Longtime activist Andy Thayer is angry and he’s taking his anger from Chicago to Washington. Thayer, you may remember, co-founded the effective online StopDrLaura campaign with fellow activist Robin Tyler, issued a press release yesterday in connection with the protest Saturday evening. Without real action, Obama's words are absolutely meaningless - a fact that seems lost on HRC. Here are some highlights from the press release with which I very much agree:
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While the picket organizers will be participating in the Sunday, Oct. 11th Equality March, they charge that the march organizers have been going easy on the Obama administration and the Democratic Party in general. Barack Obama was long on pro-gay promises during the campaign, they say, yet short on delivering on them once he took power in late January.

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“The time for talking is over,” said Andy Thayer of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net), one of the two organizations sponsoring the picket. “This President promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he promised to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he promised to pass the pro-LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Act and a whole host of other things. Instead, he’s delivered on nothing while embracing anti-gay bigots Rick Warren and Donnie McClurkin. The last thing we need is more flowery rhetoric in front of rich, self-effacing gays and lesbians dressed up like penguins.”

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”The Obama administration has likened LGBT relationships to incest and bestiality,” said Queer Liberaction co-founder Blake Wilkenson. “He cited his ‘Christian beliefs’ for the reason why he now opposes equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. He refuses issue a stop-loss order to prevent purges of lesbian and gay soldiers. If we are going to get real change out of this White House, we need to make demands of this President. As the great anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass put it, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’”

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For more information about the Saturday, October 10th pro-LGBT picket of President Obama, contact the Gay Liberation Network at LGBTliberation@aol.com or 773.209.1187, or Queer Liberaction at LGBTliberaction@gmail.com or 214.679.6321

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As my friend Wayne Besen has said, "If I were advising President Barack Obama, I would tell him to pay as much attention to the ornery jeers from protesters outside the Human Rights Campaign's Oct. 10th Washington dinner as the cheers coming from inside the ornate ballroom." Wayne went on to correctly note as follows:

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Let it be known that the GLBT community is no longer interested in being pals with the powerful or having the famous tell us we are fabulous - unless it leads to action. If the goal of this evening were simply to provide an interesting dinner guest, Meryl Streep or Michael Moore would have sufficed. What we want from Obama, however, is a fighter working to set us free. We need signed paper in the form of laws, not paper-thin promises and illusive signs of hope. Unless a concrete vision is offered at this event, Obama's speech will sink like concrete in the Potomac River.

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We are way past the time for more talk - regardless of the ass kissing that will no doubt take place at the HRC event. Only real legislative action will suffice. And until that happens, LGBT Americans need to keep their checkbooks and credit cards in the wallets and turn of the LGBT ATM machine completely.