: Why are people so cynical? Well...
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mercurychaos asked this in context of the passing into law of the Matthew Shepard Memorial Act (yes, I know that's not it's real name) and I responded:
The thing is (from my own experience as an LGBT activist and lesbian) the two big steps in any movement towards equality are equal access to marriage (or even separate-and-almost-equal, blast it, but civil partnership is so damn close it was blissful even when it missed) and equal right to serve in the military.
And I say this as a militant pacifist.
Because both are public statements of equality made by the national (or in US, the federal) government. Protection against discrimination and harassment at work and in access to services, etc, that's useful but it's at least partially dependent on the person being discriminated against having the mojo to react, to say no, this is illegal, you're not getting away with this. But the freedom to marry (or at least get civil-unioned if it's recognised by the government as if it were marriage) and the freedom to serve openly in the military - those two are pro-active door-opening statements made by the government both to queers and to straights, to closet-cases and to bigots.
And I don't believe it's at all coincidental that those are the two steps which Obama is absolutely declining to do anything about but talk. Okay, talk is good, it means it's still on the agenda and he hasn't entirely forgotten that once upon a time he made a committment to LGBT equality and civil rights.
But Obama made the same committment to the Constitution with regard to warrantless wiretapping - and broke it: he made the same committment to international human rights with regard to torturing prisoners and locking them up in extra-judicial prison camps - and broke it: and he never once made a committment to seeing the criminals responsible for torture, extra-judicial imprisonment, and aggressive war investigated or tried, which is just as well because he's done nothing else with regard to that but focus on the cover-up to ensure they can never be prosecuted, since he took office. "Better than Bush" is not a particularly high bar to get over, and Obama clears it with ease, but there's no denying he's a conservative with a track record of broken committments on civil and human rights issues that I actually consider more important than his failure to follow through on his campaign promises about marriage and the military.
Significant though those are. Obama's been a disappointment - hugely better than Bush, but so much less than he could be. I don't have a problem with people continuing to hold him to a significantly higher standard than he's managed to reach.
Tags: angry queer, evil american politics, religious politics
mercurychaos asked this in context of the passing into law of the Matthew Shepard Memorial Act (yes, I know that's not it's real name) and I responded:The thing is (from my own experience as an LGBT activist and lesbian) the two big steps in any movement towards equality are equal access to marriage (or even separate-and-almost-equal, blast it, but civil partnership is so damn close it was blissful even when it missed) and equal right to serve in the military.
And I say this as a militant pacifist.
Because both are public statements of equality made by the national (or in US, the federal) government. Protection against discrimination and harassment at work and in access to services, etc, that's useful but it's at least partially dependent on the person being discriminated against having the mojo to react, to say no, this is illegal, you're not getting away with this. But the freedom to marry (or at least get civil-unioned if it's recognised by the government as if it were marriage) and the freedom to serve openly in the military - those two are pro-active door-opening statements made by the government both to queers and to straights, to closet-cases and to bigots.
And I don't believe it's at all coincidental that those are the two steps which Obama is absolutely declining to do anything about but talk. Okay, talk is good, it means it's still on the agenda and he hasn't entirely forgotten that once upon a time he made a committment to LGBT equality and civil rights.
But Obama made the same committment to the Constitution with regard to warrantless wiretapping - and broke it: he made the same committment to international human rights with regard to torturing prisoners and locking them up in extra-judicial prison camps - and broke it: and he never once made a committment to seeing the criminals responsible for torture, extra-judicial imprisonment, and aggressive war investigated or tried, which is just as well because he's done nothing else with regard to that but focus on the cover-up to ensure they can never be prosecuted, since he took office. "Better than Bush" is not a particularly high bar to get over, and Obama clears it with ease, but there's no denying he's a conservative with a track record of broken committments on civil and human rights issues that I actually consider more important than his failure to follow through on his campaign promises about marriage and the military.
Significant though those are. Obama's been a disappointment - hugely better than Bush, but so much less than he could be. I don't have a problem with people continuing to hold him to a significantly higher standard than he's managed to reach.
Current Mood: 
cynical
cynical
