Dear President Obama

Please stop sending me emails asking me for money.  I voted for you and I donated my time and money to your campaign.  I am a 36 year old gay man and I believed in you as I have believed in no other candidate in my lifetime.  The brief filed by your Department of Justice regarding Smelt v County of Orange last week put an end to that.  The arguments put forth in that brief were disturbing and disgusting.  It could have been written by Justice Scalia or Pat Robertson.

President Obama, you tour the world preaching liberty.  You stood in front of a concentration camp and discussed the horrors of bigotry.  You have made a point of apologizing to the Muslim world both at home and abroad for the prejudice they have endured over the past eight years.  You speak worldwide of equality and then send gay men and women overseas to give their talents, their skills, their limbs and their lives in the honor of this country only to treat them as second class citizens.  Their lives don’t seem second class when they’re signing up to protect this country, do they?  How humane is it, Mr. President, that it isn’t possible to notify a gay person’s partner when they are injured or killed because they don’t exist?  How humane is it that a gay soldier’s partner can receive neither benefits nor support because they don’t exist?  We serve alone.  We die alone.  And we grieve alone.  It is my most fervent wish that every single gay member of the military come out of the closet at the same time.  Then what?

If I had my way, every single gay person in this country would stop paying our taxes until were are able to access every benefit extended to straight people.  As it stands now, my tax money goes towards ensuring that other people have benefits that I have no access to.

We all know that you’re busy.  You’ve got a lot on your plate.  That argument which seems to excuse your inability to do anything that you promised the LGBT community during your campaign is wholly devoid of logic.  How much time does it take to do what’s right?  How long does it take to realize that gay people are not on a separate planet unaffected by the worldwide economic crisis and that on many levels the rights being denied to us could help us?  How much time does it take to realize that the health care crisis affects gay people?  We have to deal with a health care system that is incredibly hostile towards us and our families.  Recognizing our relationships would go a long way towards eliminating that.  We are a part of every crisis that you’re dealing with, only we have more obstacles placed in our way as we deal with them.

How long would it take you to do what’s right if it were your daughters being denied the right to marry the person they love; if it were your daughters being denied the right to serve in the military, or worse, if it were your daughters who could serve honorably provided that they lie about who they are; if it were your daughters being told to pay taxes for services that they themselves can’t get?  For that matter, how do you know that it’s not your daughters who will be denied these rights when they grow up?  How much time does it take, Mr. President, to understand that we are a part of all of the other issues filling your plate and that denying us our rights is both destructive to us and to the country?  It doesn’t take very much time.  What it does take is leadership.  So far, in terms of LGBT issues, what you have lacked in leadership you have more than made up for in cowardice.

Today Harry Reid said that there were no sponsors for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in Congress and that he thought it needed to be done through Executive order.  I’ve heard you say that it should be done legislatively.  Where does that leave us?  It leaves us angry.  It leaves you with our money in your coffers and our votes in your ballot box.  It leaves us feeling that we’ve been had.  We voted for you with the expressed promise that you would do the right thing; that you would be strong against ignorance and the fear and emotion being stirred by the other side of this debate.  You have not followed through on that promise.  Quite the contrary.

I will contribute to your campaign again with my time and/or my money when my citizenship and inalienable rights are no longer up for debate or a vote.  I will contribute to your campaign when my rights and my life aren’t divorced from the larger issues facing this country and when I’m no longer put on the back burner or thrown under the bus altogether in the name of politics.  Perhaps you can’t do all of that unilaterally, so I’ll cut you some slack.  I will contribute when you have done what’s right and used your power and your influence to its fullest capacity in the name of equality for all American citizens, not just the ones lucky enough to be in the majority.  I will contribute to your campaign when you apologize to me for comparing my eleven year relationship to incest.

Until then, please stop emailing me and asking for money.

Sincerely, Ian

Posted on Jun 18, 2009 by Ian In: Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Write the Power
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