I’ve raised my eyebrows at the ideological contortions of gay Republicans. I’ve railed against the notion that the Democratic party will have to abandon (temporarily, if you believe it) gay issues and some women’s issues, and that those constituencies will just have to shut up, deal with it, and support the party anyway.
Yesterday I was reminded that some of us doing just that. I’m not sure why, but Gay News Blog showed up in my RSS reader yesterday with a link to this 2004 article about how some gay Democrats have decided our shit isn’t the “important shit.”
Leaders of the Democratic National Convention’s gay caucus acknowledged at their first meeting Monday afternoon that they did not get everything they wanted in the party’s platform this year. But they called the platform’s language on gay families “respectful,” and said they support it as a necessary compromise.
The platform says the party supports “full inclusion” and seeks “equal” benefits for gay families. The platform also opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment and says the marriage issue should be left to each state.
Some of the openly gay delegates attending Monday’s standing-room-only caucus meeting expressed disappointment in the language.
“I know we didn’t do enough,” said openly gay former Clinton appointee Roberta Achtenberg, who served on the platform drafting committee. But the party, she said, needs language that every Democratic candidate can run on, regardless of where they live, and party officials “made a good faith response to our importuning.” (emphasis added)
Brief translation: Democrats need issues and language that won’t scare away conservative voters in red states, and queers are too damn scary, so we’ll be warming our butts on the back burner for the time being…and at least pretending to like it.
Technorati Tags: blogs, gay rights, politics
Yup, and Bill Clinton was doing us a favor when he caved on "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and signed federal DOMA into law.
There is no excuse for any gay to be anything other than a libertarian.