It's been a common mantra coming from the Democratic Party, the Obama Administration, large beltway equality groups like the Human Rights Campaign and many others for years: just be patient and wait. 
We'll get to you and your basic civil rights eventually, but we're a little busy. Stop griping and hop on board or you'll be a wedge distraction that makes us lose elections.
So how has that plan worked out?
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community has been blamed, cajoled, insulted, courted, and ignored depending on whether our votes and dollars are needed, yet when it comes time for real leadership on issues that matter to basic, day-to-day rights, we are told to wait. Now, after the disastrous midterm elections, we've lost the chance of a generation to push forward on civil rights and equality for LGBT people.
We waited and once again got burned.
In the majority of states, we can still be fired, kicked out of homes, or denied services just for being gay. Want to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs? Make it so I don't lose mine for mentioning I went to the grocery store with my husband over the weekend. Want to talk wars, terrorism, and national defense? Stop kicking out qualified LGBT service members to coddle bigots in the military. Want to talk taxes and "small government"? Stop overtaxing my family because the federal government refuses to recognize my marriage and wants to tell me who I can love.
These are real issues that LGBT people face every day. These are things that impact the lives of those that can't afford to buy their way around discrimination with privilege and cold-hard cash that allows them to "vote with their wallet" over basic human rights. To tell us to wait is to tell us to not live our lives fully and with the confidence in basic things needed to survive.
We've seen the devastating effect that societal oppression of LGBT people has on younger generations as bullying and suicide stories hit the news everyday. Yet have we moved beyond simply lamenting these loses and worked to force change that would make their lives easier? Have we done all we can or are we simply waiting?
We've seen the popping up of groups that go around the "conventional wisdom" of the larger equality organizations, like the Prop 8, DOMA, and DADT court challenges that look to topple bigoted laws that congress, political leaders, and pet lobbyists refuse to tackle or show real leadership on. These very court cases have been mocked and looked at with disdain by politicos, even as they force the progress we need.
We're at a crossroads. We can continue to watch our rights traded away in the name of political "compromise" or we can refuse to wait. We can say that delay is simply being complicit to bigotry. We can demand action and leadership even as we take the fight to the courts and the American public ourselves.
If we don't learn the lessons of the past, history is doomed to repeat itself. We can no longer be patient. We can no longer wait. Equality can happen, but we have to carry the load- each and every one of us. Patience in politics is a fallacy and the death of progress. We have to be agitated and engaged. We have to apply pressure. Waiting is never an option and we must never accept it.
We have to make our issues a priority, because no one else will. Lesson learned.
Follow Waymon Hudson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WaymonHudson
Patience is a virtue, and it's one that everyone who is a part of this struggle needs, because even if we do all fight hard for our rights, it is still going to take time. But sitting idly and waiting for the day when everything will be rosy for us is not the answer. Hiding from people who hate or fear or misunderstand us is only going to perpetuate those feelings, and letting politicians mollify us with their platitudes about the passage of time is similarly counterproductive.
As a community, we need to do everything we can to support each other, to keep our concerns in the public eye, and make sure we make our voices heard in the elections.
MLK marched for YEARS for equality...and if you go back to when slaves were freed and when blacks got equal rights via CRL, it's about 100 years give or take. And there were SEVERAL civil rights acts passed (so clearly we didn't get it right the first time and required several more to correct the mistakes). I understand how frustrating it is to see the finish line, and yet appear to not be moving towards it. But we are.
Keep fighting the good fight, but realize that patience is NOT a bad thing!
Patience would not be a bad thing, if there were actually any indications that something was happening. It's not. All of those everyday issues that the author mentions will continue on, so it's hard to say "let's be patient." Frankly, I'm not even sure how that's supposed to work - how does one remain patient knowing that (s)he is a second-class citizen, with no end to the discrimination in sight? And for how long do we remain patient before we rise up and fight for what the U.S. Constitution guarantees us?
And of COURSE you have the "right" to be impatient...I'm just saying that your impatience is not going to get us anywhere in terms of achieving equality, as impatient people tend to lash out, even at their allies. (Yes, yes, I know Obama said he'd be a "fierce" advocate--and on more than one occasion, I've said he's been more of a luke-warm advocate, but an advocate nonetheless).
I know that many in the LGBT community viewed adding sexual orientation to hate crimes legislation as "crumbs",but for ME, that was a BIG deal. To this day, I have a friend who was brutually murdered and NO ONE has been listed as a suspect (as I guess people in that city don't really care if a gay person is decapitated and burned in their home). Had this legislation been around, maybe the feds could've investigated and found the killer(s).
We act as if Obama's been president for 7 years and hasn't produced results on DADT, DOMA, and ENDA.
Lastly, being patient doesn't mean sitting on your hands. You can still be active in achieving equality, but be patient in getting results. Less than two years is not an eternity.
My guess is the LCR's didn't think there was any chance of the law being changed legislatively when the suit was filed in 2004. There still were enough Senate Republicans opposed to repeal even after the 2008 elections to prevent the issue from being brought to the Senate floor.
If the case goes to SCOTUS and DADT is upheld (or worse, thrown out with the old rules reinstated), the only option will be legislative action. Putting pressure on Republican legislators wouldn't work as there are too many Republicans who oppose gays in the military under any circumstances.
Auldphart
The Democratic Party lacks a strong commitment to your community. It panders to you to get the votes it needs in much the same way that Republicans court Pro-Life votes and then neither one ever puts forth the legislative muscle to provide what they promised.
Until we add new political parties that actually represent the desires of their constituents, these kinds of political stalemates will go on indefinitely.
As I statted below, the difference between Truman's decision to integrate blacks into all units and President Obama's demand that the military do an objective study of the impact of repeal of DADT is that it was LEGAL for Blacks to serve at the time Truman integrated the miilitary, and Blacks were serving. On the other hand, there was a law which prevented gays from serving, period, up until DADT. DADT is a law that allowes gays to serve only if they don't openly declare that they are gay. The law says if gays are open, they are kicked out of the military.
Obama is President and he must uphold the laws. The President can NOT integrate the military through an executive orer, period. The only solutions that will work are either (1) repeal of the DADT law; or (2) a Supreme Court decision that DADT is unconstitutional amd that gays have a constitutional right to serve in the military.
Given the current rightwing makeup of the Supreme Court, repeal of DADT is the least risky of the two alternatives, since a Supreme Court ruling upholding DADT would set back gay civil rights for generations.
The DADT policy allowing gays to serve to the extent that their orientation remain undiscovered comes from a later Defense Department Directive issued by President Clinton that modifies 10 USC §654.
The existence of DADT proves the President, in his capacity as CinC has the power to order the military to ignore laws he doesn't like.
Please visit http://thompsoninthehouse.blogspot.com and learn about my position on the important issues facing our Nation.
Jacquelyn K. Thompson
There has to be a federal law. There is no way certain states will, in the near future, pass laws giving civil rights to the GLBT population. Some posters have said that the Supreme Court would rule against GLBT, but I fervently hope not. A Supreme Court decision is really the only way this is going to happen nationally.
I don't know how to interpret your comment other than to assume that you're not following the controversy closely enough to realize that the Obama administration itself is saying wait, and that not turning our back on "the people who are trying to get things done," seems to suggest that we should be praising the gay Republican group that actually prevailed in doing what the Democratic fundraisers have long claimed we should be writing checks for.
A lower court ruling has no effect as precedent. Any other lower court can rule the opposite. Republicans can go to any Red state and get any ruling they want from their cronies, so this lower court ruling is nothing but a step in the process of geting this Supreme Court to rule against gays in a modern-day Dred Scott decision.
So I suggest that before you start celebrating court wins prematurely, you study up on how the American judicial process works, and where the buck actually stops. Obama is right. There needs to be a repeal of DADT in Congress, because gay rights are toast before this Supreme Court.
Obama is protecting you...he's making sure that the decision can't be reversed....undone. He wants it done right...to go through the proper channels to set it in stone.
Log cabins....do they really still exist? I think they just get mention during elections...who are they? where are they?
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Absolutely! Or this new meme of theirs...'Gays have the same rights.They can marry women'. Absurd.
No group “belongs” to a certain political party regardless of what the MSM tells us.
He didn't. But I voted , too.
Cases are now awaiting decisions by the Courts and will in the end be rightly decided. While some see this as having to wait it is more correctly a process that is going to provide the necessary Constitutional foundation needed to guarantee these rights.A guarantee that will remove once and for all any and all debate about full equality for LGBT persons. No longer will legislators of either party be able to use "queers" as a political football. In the end the LGBT community will prevail on this issue not because of today's politicians but rather those that were responsible for our Constitution over 200 years ago.
Did Roe v. Wade end the discussion on abortion? No.
We do need courageous office holders , though.
You say that LGBT groups are not being told to wait, and then you tell them to wait.
Dems have been telling gay men and women in the military to wait at least since 1976 when Jimmy Carter promised to end the ban then did nothing about it.
If Democrats are the friends of gays, ... well, they aren't, so no need to finish that sentence.