SHOULD I BE DISGUSTED OR NOT?

By SweetPea

Well, well, well. It appears as if Obama and Hilary are openly courting the GLBT vote! That right my pets. Obama has decided to take out ads in four, various news outlets in Ohio and Texas, most notably The Dallas Voice, Outlook Weekly, and The Gay Peoples Chronicles. Not to be out done, Frau Clinton has given six interviews with six gay news outlets including TheAdvocate, Logo, and The Washington Blade.

As a 24-year-old gay male I am of course TOUCHED by the sudden attention, but I also have to remind the readers here at Sirens that there’s a huge diference between pre-election LIP SERVICE and the granting of equal rights after the election. In other words I am still not convinced. Right now Clinton and Obama will do or say anything if it means more votes and another delegate or two, so I am not quite convinced as to their sincerity.

As I said in a recent Post, Obama and Clinton have spent most of this campaign trying to play it safe, playing to the center when everyone knows that the proper way to run a primary is to play to your base during the run up to the convention and THEN play to the middle after you capture the nomination. (Frankly I’m kind of hoping for a brokered conention in which NEITHER of these clowns is elected and a third, more suitable candidate steps into the limelight, but that’s probably just a pipedream.)

But it seems to me as if neither Obama nor Clinton bothered to play to their liberal constituencies. Instead they ran to the center from the get go, as if they had each already been nominated, and as far as I’m concerned that was NOT good news for the GLBT communty at all. It sent a signal that they aren’t as liberal as we thought they were; especially Clinton who is little more than a mouthpiece for that Republican think tank, the DLC. Obama may be a tad more liberal, but as I have noted before, he also tends to associate with homophobic, black evangelical pastors, and if you want to hear the truth, I am sick to shit of anything or anyone with the word evangelical associated with it. Ditto to the word fundamentalist. Whether I am repressed by a white, conservative Bible thumper or a supposedly progressive black Bible thumper makes little difference to me. Repression is repression and I wll not vote for anyone, DLC-associated or evangelical-associated, who wants to mess around with my standing as an American citizen. I see no reason why my rights should be at risk because of somebody’s loony political or religious beliefs. I want and demand the right to marry and adopt a family. I want nationwide, equal employment opportunities. I demand stricter laws against hate speech and (especially) hate crimes which are little more than terrorist acts designed to send a message to a specific group of people. Which reminds me. I suggest that you take a look at what’s going on in Southern Florida these days. I won’t digress for too long here, but Southern Florida has become a hot bed of violence against the GLBT community, a fact which I am sure has nothing to do with increased hate speech by right wing religious and political leaders. And now that I think about it, perhaps the silence we have heard from our presdential candidates regarding gay rights and GLBT issues in general, has led some to believe that no one really cares if a few dykes and faggots are injured or even murdered. As I said before, the candidates’ silence has been deafening.

So now that Obama and Clinton are desperate for votes they suddenly realize that there is a GLBT community out here with real needs and concerns; and I have to say that I don’t know if I should be flattered or disgusted.