UPDATED, with comments below:
What should Obama say in what's being called his "big gay rights speech"?
Tonight, on the eve of the National Equality March expected to draw thousands to the nation's capital this weekend, President Obama is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at the biggest black-tie, seen-and-be-seen dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay organization. A leadership award named after the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, a long-time champion of gay rights, will be given to Judy and Dennis Shepard, around the same time their 21-year-old son Matthew lay on his deathbed after being robbed, pistol-whipped and tied to a fence -- the victim of a hate crime. That was 11 years ago.
A lot has changed since, and to many gays, a lot still needs to change. "Change," of course, being the cornerstone of Obama's historic campaign. Though Obama is the second American president to speak at the annual dinner -- now in its 13th year -- he is, as the first black president, the first member of a minority group to address a minority group that's been fighting for changes for many years. Expectations are high.
And this being a gay event staged in official, political Washington, there will be picketers. But not the usual kind. To underscore the pressure on the current Democratic administration, the picketers are members of gay groups who feel that Obama has not delivered on his promises in his nearly nine months in office. Not enough. Not fast enough. Especially in the gay rights landscape that's been energized and emboldened by the work of online-powered grassroots organizers and bloggers on sites as varied as the Bilerico Project, Pam's House Blend, Towleroad and AmericaBLOG, among others. Together, they're using the social Web -- Facebook, Twitter and YouTube -- to broaden their reach, engage supporters, get the message out -- and push Obama. After all, no minority group is invisible online.
In a Washington Post profile shortly after Obama's victory, which coincided with the passage of Prop. 8, the California initiative that banned same-sex marriage, Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend told me: "Obama has said over and over again that his will be an inclusive presidency. So we'll see. Words are just words. They must become actions. Everyone will be closely watching."
Indeed, and waiting for whatever Obama will say Saturday night.
"[Obama] 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," Blake Wilkinson, co-founder of the Dallas-based Queer Liberaction, told the gay news site EDGE. Wilkinson's group was created after Prop. 8 passed, and the Internet has served as its hub. "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.'"
Note the reference to Douglass, the black writer and abolitionist. Douglass may serve as an inspiration for tonight's speech. Another inspiration may be James Baldwin, who was a blogger -- personal, political, personally political -- long before the word even existed. In an essay in last year's New York Review of Books, openly gay Irish author Colm Toibin explored the similarities between Obama and Baldwin. The rhythm, the jazz, the rawness of Baldwin's prose has had an obvious influence on Obama's writing.
In a speech titled "In Search of a Majority," the black, gay writer who did not want to be seen as "merely" a black writer or a gay writer, told the crowd at Kalamazoo College in 1960: "We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be."
The first minority president should ponder those words as he prepares for his "big gay rights speech."
Share what you think Obama should say in the comment section below. I'll update the page periodically with the best suggestions before Saturday's speech.
UPDATED, with your suggestions:
thromulese wrote:
What should he say? He should say: Tomorrow I will ask my democratic colleagues to introduce a gay bill of rights. This will include a repeal of that awful and unconstitutional law DOMA and the end of DADT. My administration will also immediately cease defending DOMA. And I personally will help my colleagues in congress make the Gay Bill of Rights the law of the land.Like people who are born black, brown, or gay; it was not a choice. It is time for the constitution to protect ALL Americans and give them ALL equal access to America's institutions and privileges and rights as stated in the constitution. Discrimination codified into law is not and never will be the American way.
Then he should say; god bless America. Then he should do what he said he'd do -- for a change.
oceanofconsciousness wrote:
I don't want to hear him say ANYTHING. I want to see him DO something positive for gay civil rights. I will not believe in him until he makes legal headway. Right now, all his past actions have shown he is actually anti-gay rights. So he better not just give lip-service.
claypoint3 wrote:
As a middle-aged, straight, Christian woman, I'm glad that the President is talking about this. All of us need to be mindful -- always -- of when the civil rights of fellow Americans are either at risk or overtly being trampled on. If it happens to one of us, it could happen to any of us tomorrow. We're all in this together.
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"My fellow Americans. Grow up!"
"It is not now and never will be the business of your government to be crawling up and down gutters of prurience, poking our noses around corners, delving into other peoples histories, turning over every available stone and seeking to discover what other people do in their beds. It is none of your business".
"Further I would say to my fellow Americans get rid of the religious albatross which hangs around your necks. It is not fear of God which renders the American people to being childlike and simplistic. It is the fear of men who pretend to act in the name of God which keeps you ignorant and intrusive.
"Ask yourselves WHY it is your right to dictate to others the morality of frightened, tiny-minded bigots?
"There are those amongst you who are silly enough to criticize same-sex relationships on the basis that someone wrote what someone else's uncle passed on to his aunt's nephew, and his first cousin twice-removed on the distaff side, that it was written in a book which was three thousand years old.
"My fellow Americans, who amongst you would put the peasant ramblings of illiterate shepherds in a three thousand year book which was dictated to scribes whose education was marginally better than the befuddled wits of the persons intoning this stupidity.
"My fellow Americans, again I say it. GROW UP!"
A while back, one of my staff came into my office and said that he needed to talk to me about something very personal. Fine, I said, what's the problem? He told me that he was g@y. I could see that he was tearing himself up about it, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. Before I could say anything, he shocked me by adding, "if you want to fire me, I understand."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Why the h#ll would I want to fire you?" I said. "Your s3xual orientation has nothing to do with me or anybody else, and has no bearing on your ability to do your job. Why would you think otherwise?"
He explained that he'd encountered dreadful persecution at his previous company when they discovered his orientation; his former boss had been the one encouraging it. I told him that he should have sued for harassment, but he claimed that he didn't want to make a big deal out of it and decided to quietly resign instead. I assured him that if anybody--- ANYBODY--- in my company ever tried to harass him, I would fire their a55 so quickly, their feet wouldn't touch the ground. It astonishes me that in this day and age, such ign0rance is still so prevalent, and so many g@y Americans still live in fear of persecution.
We have most of America now asking for the same healthcare that most of the western world has had for 50 years and yet we are told thats impossible. No, going to the Moon in 10 years was impossible.
You would think we were asking for more than what the rest of the world already has... instead of just what they have had...
The greatest nation in the world these days seems to be content falling behind the rest of the world.
We seem to accept that 37th in healthcare is OK. What about being number 1? That 51st in Literacy is OK, that making nothing is OK. That being the worlds largest debtor nation is OK. That not making computers or commercial electronics or not building ships is OK. That having the highest dropout rates is OK. Having a lower rate of kids going to college and graduating each year than the rest of the world is OK. If our roads, dams/bridges are crumbling.. its OK. If we cant build the best cars/solar-panels/ wind turbines, its OK as long as we can get fries with our Big Mac.
Americans once didn't settle for second best!
We have become as a nation, the proverbial frog in the pot of water that does not jump out as the temperture slowly increases to a full boil.
Regards
Well said--fanned and faved.
Some people here think we should stay in the "center" and not demand real change.
I disagreed.
Real change does not come from the center.
What real conservative would support tax cuts at a time of war?
If a war is really worth fighting, then its worth paying for...
If we had a war tax... then the repugs would have us out of the middle east in a nano second.
Regards
Now it’s up to all of us, gay and straight and bi. We have to move the mountains. We have to push our legislators. We have to be the ones who will not take “no” for an answer. I can only imagine where I would be today if we had not taken up the challenge in the face of many who would wish us away.
I do not know what it feels like to be discriminated against based on who I love. I do know what oppression feels like, and my fight against it did not stop with my own happiness. I have made calls, signed petitions, written, marched, prayed, and have never given up.
We have to time for defeatist talk. If the Congress does not want to do, make them. If the president is not moving fast enough, keep the pressure up. But whatever you do, do not give in to the temptation of throwing your hands up, making a snarky remark, and quitting.
Be frustrated. Be angry. But be there.
The gay community needs to get off of the liberal websites and visit the conservative websites for a wake up call. Start listening to local conservative radio in your States to stay abreast of what they are planning for the repeal of DADT. I recently heard today that the churches and community groups are starting town halls and email campaigns against DADT. The health care town halls were just a taste of what these conservatives are planning.
Many of us who need to figure out how to get politically involved and actually WORK and PLAN and think strategically, and get focused on something besides the cute a$ $ in front of you .
And still people complain about it all being so much talk, talk, talk.
When and how often have you ever heard such "talk, talk, talk" coming from a President of the United States that makes you so tired of hearing it???
On this and so many other issues Obama is sticking his legacy out on a limb to even attempt to rally Americans to a higher ideal.
It's up to all of us to use that momentum he is creating for us to actually get ourselves across whatever insurmountable river or mountain that may seem to be.
Rome was not built in a day. And America will not be rebuilt in a day.
meet with members of congress and the senate till the cows come home, but he
cannot force them to vote a certain way. It's up to us, to call and write our congresspeople
and senators.
Judge Obama buy what he says, and he is the second comming. Judge him by his actions, and he is the second comming of George W.
It will be president Obama's job to sign the legislation that repeals DADT when it
arrives on his desk.
9 months in and you've thrown in the towel. What are you doing to make sure that Congress and the President are responsive to what we want and need?
Stay 'betrayed' and keep on grousing...we'll see how productive that is.
The so-called Christians of the Jerry Falwell and Dobson type hate everyone and everything. Wonder what Jesus would say about that?
All the rightwingers and fear and paranoia in the world can't stop this juggernaut.
People who hate are weak and feel the need to gain power in any way they can.
are very insecure with themselves.