My Obama Prevarication Predictor says that whenever a consensus develops that poses an obstacle to something Obama wants, within 72 hours he will say whatever the group blocking him wants to hear but with no intention of actually delivering on what he says, but rather the intention of getting his opponents to relax, stop paying attention and disperse so he can do what he wants.
In September, the Democrats in Congress told the gay community that now is not a good time for them to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) and the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) or to pass ENDA (the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act: gays have no federal protection against employment discrimination and little protection at the state level). Despite having a Democratic president and commanding majorities in both the House and Senate, they said that “never” looks good to them instead. Obama seems to approve of that timetable, despite his campaign promises to repeal both DOMA and DADT.
The homosexual community found this timetable unsatisfactory.
So, right on schedule according to the Obama Prevarication Predictor, Obama is slated to speak at a dinner organized by the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday, Oct. 10. While Obama has been rumored to have cruised gay bars for quickie sex in Chicago when he was a state senator, that is not the kind of contact that would help him understand the lesbian and gay community. He sat in Rev. Wright’s gay-hating church for 20 years. And HillBuzz reports that unlike other Illinois Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Obama has NEVER marched in a Gay Pride parade. I guarantee you that no matter how much he may think he has followed Saul Alinsky’s rule to know your marks and what they want to hear, Obama does NOT understand this crowd. And he does NOT want to tell them what they want to hear.
Because lesbians and gays really are second-class citizens who must work for equality all the time, a very high percentage of us are activists. And, because the government has never been our friend, we do not look to the government for answers or wait for the government to solve our problems. The only thing we want is for government itself to stop making itself our problem with laws like DOMA and DADT that force us into second-class citizenship.
And we want that right now, since lesbians and gays put a lot of money, sacrifice and hard work into electing that Democratic majority in Congress and a Democratic president. Because of the very high level of political involvement and activism in the homosexual community, a critical mass of people KNOW that it’s now or never.
So I’m expecting Obama to try to placate his HRC audience with grand promises that have artfully-expressed escape clauses. He will try to make them think they will be getting a loaf of bread, when all he’ll really deliver is crumbs. Oh, and while the REAL obstacle to homosexual equality is the religious Left — black churches and the Latin and pro-illegal-immigrant Catholic Church — I predict Obama will demonize the religious Right and blame them for his intransigence and paralysis.
What has Obama worried is the reality that gays will stop working and stop donating — the expression is shutting down the “GayTM” (ATM, automated teller machine). This already happened in June, when major gay donors dropped out of a fundraiser. Obama responded by saying he would sign an order giving federal employees who were gay all sorts of rights, as long as they were legal under DOMA — his lawyerly escape clause. The list gays were told they could receive was very long. But, oops! so sorry! about the only item on the list that was legal under DOMA was leave to care for a sick life partner.
I’m also expecting that Obama will not do any better with the HRC than he did in Copenhagen pitching Chicago for the Olympics. He doesn’t know the crowd. And this crowd is going to cut through his bumper sticker oratory, his gaslighting and befogging and lawyerly parsing of his promises — and if he does not say what they want to hear, do what they want him to do and do it on their timetable — all of which I think are very reasonable — then the GayTM will be closed and gays and lesbians will be out on strike forthwith. If the gay and lesbian leadership is smart and Obama makes promises with deadlines are farther in the future than Oct. 14, they will tell Obama that homosexuals will withhold their money and labor until DOMA and DADT are repealed and ENDA is passed and signed into law.
I absolutely LOVE watching some gay leftists’ intellectual gymnastics to justify continued support of a man who didn’t deserve it in the first place. Just ask Donnie McClurkin and Rick Warren. And I love even more the other gay leftists’ (the ones who realize it) reactions to the fact that they got screwed, and not in a good way.
It’s time for them to realize that in fighting for our rights, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
The next step is for gays and lesbians to think beyond their interest group and consider Obama’s character and motivations, and leftism in general. A small group of Chicanos is now turning on Obama because federal protection of a little fish called the Delta Smelt has cost them their agricultural jobs in California. As soon as this decision is reversed, they’ll go right back to Trusting In He Who Provides rather than in free people and free markets. By all means, gays and lesbians should unite around the issues, but identity politics that lumps all in with the Democrats is a loser.
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Obama Prevarication Indicator? Watch his eyes. If they’re open…
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The old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies to politics as well. A group fighting for its rights put all its eggs in the Democrat basket, and if that basket breaks in 2010, do you think the GOP, whom they spent decades vilifying while they returned the favor, will suddenly pick up the eggs for them?
Attmay,
If the Republicans are smart, they’ll let bygones be bygones. Homosexuals as a group have had to be entrepreneurial due to all the kinds of discrimination they face — even in their own families. For example, I just read a review at Pajamas Media of a Wanda Sykes special and she points out she never had to sit down with her parents to talk about being black. So that entrepreneurial spirit means homosexuals really do not love or trust government, so they are not true progressives/socialists. Also, I think it’s fair to say the Republicans started the vilification and have done plenty to deserve it. But now it’s time to stop. Republicans need homosexuals in the fight to stop this country from being taken over by socialism. Homosexuals are fighting for issues dear to Republican and conservative hearts: equality, liberty, individualism, service in the military, marriage and employment. Gays belong in the Republican tent.
I read that Obama told people at the Human Rights Campaign dinner tonight that he can’t do anything for gays right now because if he did, it would jeopardize his chances to get Republican support for his initiatives to turn the U.S. into a socialist totalitarian state where he is president-for-life — um, no wait — he said it would jeopardize his chances of getting Republican support for Obamacare, cap-and-trade, blah-blah-blah. THEY don’t know that Republicans and conservatives see what Obama is doing as the former and not the latter because they don’t realize how toxic Obama’s proposals are. THEY don’t know we are fighting for the life of the U.S. as a capitalist democratic republic and we are NOT going to compromise with Obama on any of his proposals to destroy this country SO THEY MIGHT AS WELL GO ON STRIKE RIGHT NOW TO FORCE HIM TO KEEP HIS WORD and get DOMA and DADT repealed and ENDA passed. Because if they don’t get it done in this very session of Congress in 2009, that means the Democrats will never, ever keep their promises to homosexuals.
Cynthia