Liberals and Their Invisible Homophobia
I’d forgotten how bad the Clinton era was for the gay community; evidently so has the gay community.
One of Clinton’s first acts as president was to introduce “don’t ask, don’t tell,” enshrining active discrimination against open homosexuals in law; in the first five years of his presidency, discharges of gay soldiers rose 70%. In 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states (and the federal government) not to recognize same-sex marriages of other states, and then touted his support of the measure on Christian radio stations. The Clinton Justice Department refused to offer an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of Romer v. Evans, which challenged a Colorado constitutional amendment seeking to ban cities and towns from instituting antidiscrimination laws protecting gays. Clinton also signed a bill barring HIV-positive people from entering the country and one that discharged HIV-positive soldiers from the military. “It’s really outrageous the pass that Clinton has gotten from gay and lesbian people considering the harm he did to the gay rights movement,” Sammon says.Clinton’s did not stop harming gays once he left office. In 2004 he reportedly encouraged Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to not only support anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendments at the state level, but the Federal Marriage Amendment as well. The Clinton administration—looked upon by liberals, gay ones especially, as a golden era in American history—proved that leading Democrats can be pro-gay by convenience, not conviction, and that when homophobia works for political advantage liberals are no less hesitant to employ it than conservatives.
Obama is no different:
In October, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign invited Donnie McClurkin—a notorious “ex-gay” singer and minister—to participate in its Southern Gospel Tour event in South Carolina. McClurkin claims that homosexuality can be “cured” through prayer and that gay people are “trying to kill our children.” While Obama later claimed that he did not agree with McClurkin about gays, he had no problem giving the performer a platform to preach his bigotry, knowing that such views are widely held among the conservative Southern black voters whose support he needs to win the Democratic nomination.
How long is the gay community going to put up with being used by the Democrats? When are they going to realize that their natural allies are the Libertarians – or perhaps more accurately the libertarian-minded. Many of the latter are found today in the Republican party. After all, if the Party wants government out of people’s lives that should include their bedrooms. But until gays wake up and stop being used, things won’t change.
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