Really?
I’m seeing the ads everywhere, for barackobama.com. My Facebook page is positively infested with them. And every time I see one, my blood pressure ratchets up another notch.
I’m pleased that Obama has spoken out in support of marriage equality, really I am. But let’s get something straight.
Barack Obama is standing with me. Not the other way around.
And I’m not just sitting and kvetching from way up in the cheap seats here.
I was at the March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights in 1987. I attended more protests than I can remember in Los Angeles between 1985 and 1993. I volunteered for The Names Project, creating quilt panels and helping others to create theirs. I volunteered for, and donated to, the Human Rights Campaign Fund. I signed petitions and wrote letters. I helped my friend Rob Eichberg launch National Coming Out Day in 1989.
Where was Barack Obama?
I helped the fight against Prop 8 in California, and I wasn’t even a resident of the state anymore. I’ve at the very least made a donation to those fighting every other major ballot initiative aiming to deprive LGBT men and women of their fundamental civil rights in the past twenty-plus years.
Where has Barack Obama been?
I did not, and do not, claim to be a leader. I didn’t lead. I helped, right alongside a lot of other people. But I was there, and I took a stand. And don’t tell me he was too young to do that in the 1980s, because he’s only slightly younger than I am.
Hell, I’m not even gay. I haven’t been fighting for myself all these years, except insofar as I believe that equal rights denied to some ultimately means equal rights denied to all. I’ve been fighting for people I loved: Jay, and John, and David, and Steve, and Bill, and Pat, and Rob, and others – all wonderful men, my beloved friends. All gone now, all killed by AIDS. Back then, we weren't fighting for the right to marry. We were fighting to save lives - lives that too many Americans considered not worth the trouble to fight for.
So, like I said. I’m pleased that Barack Obama has finally decided to speak up. I really am. Better late than never, I guess.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Leaders – true leaders - take a stand when taking a stand is the right and necessary thing to do, without regard to the personal or political risk involved. They don’t wait and take a stand only when political expediency dictates that they must.
Barack Obama is President. When he speaks, he commands attention. When he takes a stand, that stand is going to have some degree of influence in the national debate. No argument there.
But a leader? Not on this issue. And for him to campaign on his supposed leadership on this issue galls me to the point of apoplexy.
So, Mr. President: Welcome aboard. I'm glad to have you standing with us. But do not for one red hot second think that people like me, people who have fought this fight for all these years, consider you to be a leader. You’re nearly three decades too late for that.