LGBT blogger slams Barack Obama

There are many pieces floating around blogs right now about Barack Obama’s relationship with the LGBT community. Below are exerts from InterstateQ (North Carolina based LGBT blogger). Thoughts?

President Barack Obama? Could it really happen? If so, the LGBT community should be worried. While many may applaud the junior senator from Illinois’ “big tent” approach to his campaign, it is also a strategy that has left the LGBT community standing at odds with forces from the religious right and rabidly anti-gay “ex-gay” movement.

In South Carolina, Obama’s “big tent” campaign strategy coalesced in the form of gospel concerts attracting huge numbers of African-American voters and featuring a “respected leader” in the “ex-gay” movement.

From New Hampshire state Rep. Mo Baxley:
Obama lost the support of many in the LGBT community when he featured [anti-gay] entertainer Donnie McClurking at campaign events in South Carolina and then went ahead with the events even after being personally informed of the entertainers’ very public and virulently anti-gay remarks - making him the only Democratic candidate to be protested by members of our community. While Obama certainly has a pro-LGBT platform, in this circumstance, his actions speak louder than his well-intentioned words and we can not support a candidate that harmed the LGBT community in South Carolina in his quest to become president.

If Obama wins the U.S. presidency the LGBT community is in for four years of being subjected to a dangerously employed “big tent” strategy that places an oppressed group of citizens at the same table as their oppressors. Obama’s presidency would see James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Donnie McClurkin and other anti-gay leaders sitting down with LGBT community leaders telling them how much they are evil while Obama sits back and says, “We should work together and hope for change.”

Obama may not have the courage to stand up to the right-wing bullies if he becomes president, just like he wasn’t able to stand up against them and say, “I’m sorry Donnie, but your views do not match my view of America. My campaign is about one of equality and that isn’t something you stand for. I’ll have to ask that you not perform. I can’t give you a platform for hate.”

Matthew Shepard Act an empty gesture?

Andrew Sullivan and Steve Chapman's recent comments on the Matthew Shepard Act got me thinking....are they correct? Is the HRC making a bigger deal of this than it really is?

Read their comments before you decide:

A constitutional federal hate crimes bill can only target a minuscule number of "hate crimes" that are related to interstate commerce:

For all its grand intentions, the bill doesn't really do much at all. Supporters would like to make every hate crime a federal offense. But they can't. And the ones they can outlaw are so few and far between that it's hard to see why they bother...

The provision in question snares only those crimes in which someone crosses state lines (as with most federal laws), uses "a channel, facility or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce," or uses a weapon that has traveled across state or international boundaries.

What's the relevance to the murder of Matthew Shepard, or to most of the other attacks on gays? None whatsoever. You might think it's better to do nothing than to do something irrelevant. But for a lot of U.S. Senators, there's no gesture like an empty gesture.

And when you realize that the Shepard case was nothing like the incident the interest groups made it out to be, the pointlessness of this exercise is overwhelming. Except it isn't, of course. The primary point of such a federal bill is to raise funds for a federal interest group like the Human Rights Campaign. It's a perfect fundraising vehicle because it is emotionally visceral, can be framed as a simple case of "are you for beating gay people to death or not?", and gives HRC a slim reed of legislative achievement to sell to its members and donors by direct mail. It's about the money. Period.

Anyone notice a little dislike for a certain national organization? Andrew Sullivan has been critical of the HRC calling them "a patronage wing of the Democratic party, designed primarily to get its members jobs in future Democratic administrations or with Democrats on the Hill (even while Howard Dean treats them like the help)." Sullivan is a gay political commentator and the author of four books, distinguished by his often personal style of political analysis. His political blogs are among the most widely read on the Web.

Regardless if you agree with him or not, U.S. President Bush has promised to veto the legislation saying it is a matter for the states.