Are we the proverbial beggars settling for loose change and bread crumbs?
Is that what we've been reduced to?
By allowing gay activism to be hijacked by the polite and impotent blue-suited celebrity-obsessed boys and girls of groups like HRC and GLAAD, we find ourselves politically impotent, at best somewhat influential but always utterly powerless. The ongoing ENDA fiasco is a great example of this.
The majority of us are politically and socially apathetic and the rest of us throw good money after bad through continued support of several large gay advocacy organizations that have clearly failed in their mission and have pinned our hopes on a woman who has little to no track record of openly and aggressively supporting unqualified gay rights.
This latest nonsense with Barack Obama and his hypocritical and superficial sudden passion for Faith tours and gospel shows, pandering to African-American homophobes just weeks after kissing queer ass on LOGO shines a very harsh light on the truth about Democrats. Our great friend, Bill Richardson told Melissa Etheridge that homosexuality is a choice and then spent weeks pretending he never said that; and his gay supporters went into denial quickly "forgetting" that statement and blaming it on jet lag. Gee, I hope we're not attacked when President Richardson is jet lagged. Anti-gay marriage pro-gay Edwards represents a state where gay men are still being arrested for unnatural acts. Gay beloved Hillary Clinton who also won't support full queer equality is part of the hubby-wife team that gave us Don't Ask,Don't Tell. The most pro-gay of the Democrats, Dennis Kucinich is crazy and has admitted on national television that he's not only seen UFO's, he's even been in communication with them. The one and only pro-gay marriage candidate is also pro-UFO.
"I love queers" Obama is sharing center stage during his South Carolina primary campaign "I Love Jesus and Ex-Gays" 40 Days of Faith Magical Mystery Tour with a pathologically damaged gay man who has chosen a supernatural fantasy over mental health and self-fulfillment. And never mind that Obama is to gospel what Courtney Love is to Handel's Messiah.
Born to a Kenyan father and a white mother, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, Obama didn't "discover" church attendance until he became a politician. As one gay African-American writer recently told The Los Angeles Times, "Obama is not only a generation but a world away from the political leadership most of us African Americans have come to know. Putting on Baptist drag and staging a gospel music show is precisely the sort of pandering Obama had scrupulously avoided. Until now."
Obama, young, pretty and full of common sense blocking testosterone, has handled himself over the past few weeks like a political moron. Historically that strategy has only paid off for Republicans. But his clumsiness and obvious ethical and moral bankruptcy is not unique to him--and that's the horrible truth we must face at some point if we are to ever achieve full citizenship and full rights in these United States.
Obama's South Carolina fiasco is about all of the leading Democratic candidates. Clinton and Edwards manage to finesse their hypocrisy with far more skill and slipperiness than the youthful and over-confident Illinois Senator but to think for a second that any one of them--except for Krazy Kucinich--gives a rat's ass about queer Americans is a consummate act of self-delusion on the part of the queer community.
Sure, Republicans may step over us, ignore us and occasionally spit on us as they pass, and Democrats may pause and toss some loose change our way, but at the end of the day, as far as both sets of presidential candidates are concerned, we're about as relevant as homeless beggars. At best, we're a stage prop.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, until we're ready to take the streets we shall remain second class citizens and at the mercy of fashion and the moods and whims of the white Christian heterosexual power structure.