Zero Major Gay Changes by Obama This Term

To say that Barack Obama has been a major disappointment from the prospective of LGBT Americans who believed his campaign lies - I mean promises - would be a case of understatement. Other than passage of the Hate Crimes legislation (which in reality does nothing for the vast, vast majority of LGBT citizens), Obama has accomplished nothing during the almost first two years f his administration. Worse yet, if all of his half-measures and lack of leadership result in major Democrat losses in Congress, the coming two years can be written off as well. We in the LGBT community will have been cynically and disingenuously suckered and played for fools. Fools who wanted to believe that Obama was honest and actually meant even a fraction of his statements on LGBT issues. Yes, Harry Reid has announced that the Senate will now take up the DADT repeal legislation in Congress, but even if passed, the legislation does not guarantee repeal or set any real time table. John Aravosis has a column at America Blog Gay that sums up the sorry situation quite well. Here are some highlights:
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With the imminent demise of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise that did not, in any case, repeal DADT (even though the NYT and other lazy journalists like to claim it did), and the imminent demise of the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, President Obama is about to have accomplished a record zero of his top promises to the gay community. A record that, if we lose the House, will likely remain at zero for the next six years, . .
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[A]fter all the pandering by all the pro-Obama apologists who said that we were wrong to ask the President to address our community's needs during his first two years in office, that we were wrong to warn of the imminent loss of a Democratically-controlled House, and how that loss would stymie gay rights progress for years to come, and that we were wrong to suggest that this President would never, ever get to addressing a real repeal of DADT and DOMA, and the passage of ENDA - after all that, it turns out we were right.
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Barack Obama is on the precipice of accomplishing a grand total of none of his major promises to gay and lesbian Americans in return for our supporting his candidacy with our votes and our money. I'm not smelling change.
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It clearly was Barack Obama's choice not to move ahead with any of his major promises to the gay community in the first two years of his administration. No one else is to blame other than the President for that simple decision. That decision may have killed any chance of ever passing ENDA, or repealing DADT and DOMA, for the entire four years that President Obama in office. It was Barack Obama's choice not to even touch DADT until this year, and then not to push for a full repeal, but rather some make-shift compromise that may, or may not, lead to some kind of change in the policy at some future date (though what kind of change, for the better or the worse, isn't a guarantee). We simply weren't important enough, and now it appears we are getting nothing.
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So what was the point of voting for President Obama, over Hillary, for example, if you're gay? If he wasn't going to keep his top promises to our community, then how was he any better than Hillary, or any other Democrat running at the time? Does anyone honestly think Hillary wouldn't have appointed more gays than any previous administration? Does anyone honestly think Hillary wouldn't have signed the Hate Crimes bill? President Obama has done nothing on gay civil rights that any other Democrat wouldn't have done in his stead. Such is not a definition of fierce advocate. It's the definition of business as usual.
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[A]s I've written before, I'm not a big fan of being betrayed by friends, even when I know my enemies would have treated me worse. I expect my enemies to treat me like a pariah. I don't expect my friends to do the same. And in many ways, it's worse when the indifference, and the lies, come from a friend rather than an enemy.
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If gay voters want to hand their money and their ballots over to someone who won't keep his major promises, who won't significantly advance the cause of their civil rights, who will outright work against those promises as we attempt to advance our civil rights in courts of law, but who at least won't be as big a bigot as John McCain, then they are certainly welcome to support him with all their hearts and wallets.
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I expect politicians to at least try to keep their major promises. I never said they have to succeed. But they have to at least TRY. Our fierce advocate seems fiercely indifferent. And I fear that an increasing number of Democratic voters now share his indifference.
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I believe that John is 100% on target and that many incumbent Democrats will be voted out of office on November 2, 2010 because of Obama's failed leadership. Again, we need a primary challenge to Obama in the lead up to 2012.