Recently I had been starting to succumb to the spreading lack of faith in government and waning confidence in the Obama administration’s campaign promises of securing equal rights for the LGBT community. Though it has only been six months since the President has taken office, there were a handful of small signs which made me feel uneasy about the reality of what was going to happen.
There had been updates to sections of the White House website page concerning the civil rights agenda of the administration. It had dropped the specific wording referencing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and efforts to repeal it with a more general phrase stating the administration “opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage”. There has also been talk about progress in reversing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policies which bar gay men and women from serving in the military, but people are still being ousted. Additionally, just days after the Justice Department made a very strong show up support for DOMA, President Obama signed a memorandum extending same-sex benefits to federal employees. While there were no signs of a dramatic about-face it appeared that the support for the gay community was growing tepid.
Then, on Monday, President Obama and the First Lady hosted an unprecedented reception to celebrate LGBT Pride Month and mark the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which kick-started the Pride movement. He delivered a very beautiful speech making it very clear he is still an advocate for the gay community. Watching it, I was awestruck to see a man elected to office in the face of decades of racial discrimination, standing there in the White House as my president pledging support for me as a gay American and promising to be my champion. This, only a handful of years after the last president stood in the White House stating, in so many words, that a ban on gay marriage was the only way to secure the future of our nation from the forces of evil. Though I am not ready to say, “all is forgiven, obviously this was just some big misunderstanding,” my confidence has been buoyed significantly after hearing his remarks:
Until the last year or so, I’ve not been very politically aware or active. I’m still not extremely informed, nor do I consider myself very much of an activist. However, for the first time in my life I have a vested stake in what is happening, these things directly affect me and how I will live my life. I have never been so frustrated on a personal level with politics as I have regarding DOMA. The recent ruling from the justice claimed that DOMA is “a cautious policy of federal neutrality towards a new form of marriage,” when in fact it is anything but neutral. It affects me negatively on personal level as well as having impacts on me professionally. Every morning for months I have got up in the morning and started my day only to realize with great disappointment that DOMA is still out there. That I am not equal. I am not the same. Even if I were to get married in a state which recognizes me as an equal citizen among my peers, the federal government would not be so kind.
I was growing more and more impatient regarding the seemingly apparent ambivalence toward the gay community recently from the White House and I began writing about my dissatisfaction though I had not yet decided to share these thoughs. In a way I’m happy I was late to the game because I hate the idea that I might give people who dislike the administration the satisfaction of knowing I was not satisfied. More than anything though, I’m disappointed that I didn’t take the opportunity to be more vocal. I feel that it is one of the very few ways I can try and reach out and make more people aware of these situations, to share my determination and my story and try to somehow spur change on my own.
In the future I hope to be more vocal about these things. I plan to be an advocate for myself and other people like me regarding issues like this. I realize that I’m just one small voice in a sea of thousands upon thousands of other people both for and against these issues. But standing silently has even less of an impact than even this tiny effort and right now, every little bit counts.