Don't Pull Away From Us, Obama!

This is what worries me. Already, we're seeing Barack back away ever so slightly from LGBT causes that he championed on the campaign trail:

President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say. Repealing the ban was an Obama campaign promise. However, Mr. Obama first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus and then present legislation to Congress, the advisers said.

We have to stay on our politicians. We can't let them "Clinton" us again. Not this time. We as a community have allowed ourselves to be taken advantage of too many times over the past 20 years, we simply cannot allow it to happen anymore. We have a Democratically controlled national government and a court system that more and more favors deregulation of government authority in personal lives (read: more likely to support gay-positive issues because the opposition represents too much government interference). The Speaker of the House has built her career on the backs of gay and lesbian men and women. We have a President that has promised our community soooo much, and even though I doubt that he can live up to all his promises, we need to hold his feet to the fire nonetheless. If we don't demand all our rights, we will receive none of them.

I get that he wants to build a consensus. I admire that as well. But I've far too often seen politicians pull out Bull Shit lines like this in an attempt to appease an audience while they whole-heartedly forget the issue. It's the classic "Look over there!" I know Barack says he's not the same old, same old kind of Politician, and I believe that he will bring change to this country, but he needs to show me that he's going to work on the Change I voted for.

Write to Barack today. Write to your Senator. Do not let the repeal of DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) become a back seat issue. I know we're fighting hard for marriage equality, but we cannot allow our flanks to become weak while we focus on one issue. Marriage is not the end-all, be-all of equality, although it is a HUGE piece of the puzzle. Our soldiers already have to fear for their lives in an unjust war, there is no reason they should also have to fear being disgraced and stripped of their service record simply for being who they are. It is an archaic belief system that maintains DADT, and one that has caused far more harm to our service numbers and Defense budget than openly gay soldiers ever will.

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