Asterisk

After several weeks of calls for boycott following the Obama administration’s failure to attend to any of his campaign promises, the 10th annual LGBT Leadership Council fundraiser for the DNC went on as planned last night. The event, with Vice President Joe Biden as the main attraction, was boycotted by at least 13 prominent members of the community, as well as the Stonewall Democrats and former DNC chair Howard Dean.

And yet, the DNC reportedly raised nearly a million dollars, at least 30% more than last year’s pre-election event. From Advocate.com:

Despite the controversy, about 180 people showed up to hear Vice President Joe Biden speak for a price tag of $1,000 to $30,400 per plate. The event brought in nearly $1 million, up from about $750,000 last year, according to a Democratic Party source.

When Vice President Joe Biden took the stage, he told the crowd that he had specifically asked to speak at the event and that his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, had also requested to address a Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network event earlier this month.

“I am not unaware of the controversies swirling around this dinner,” Biden said, “swirling around the speed — or lack thereof — that we’re moving on issues that are of great importance to you and, quite frankly, to me and to the President and to millions of Americans.”

The Vice President’s words are nice, but as we’ve learned over the last six months, they signify no real change in policy.

By donating a record amount, even amidst the outcry from the LGBT community, even while protesters from SLDN drew attention to President Obama’s refusal to halt the firing of servicemembers such as Maj. Margaret Witt, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, and 1Lt. Dan Choi, even after White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday morning that President Obama would continue to ruin the lives, careers, and futures of these honorable, dedicated servicemembers, even as it becomes clear that the Matthew Shepard Act will be DOA if it even makes it to the president’s desk, these donors have made a statement.

Their statement is this: They don’t care. Their access to and hobnobbing with well-heeled Washington insiders is more important to them than pesky rank-and-file members of the community who just want to stop being abused.

Understand the damage done last night. Every advance we’ve made over the last few weeks since the Obama Justice Department released its shameful DOMA brief, is now gone. The Democratic party knows, and President Obama knows, that we don’t control the community’s purse strings. Our supposed social betters do that for us, and they’ll keep the money flowing no matter what President Obama and Congress do.

So. Where do we go from here?

It’s been a month since David Mixner proposed a March on Washington for October 10-11, 2009 and this does nothing but solidify my support of the idea. Our job now is to show both our national leaders and the A-list LGBTs that our voices are louder than their money. Our goal is nothing short of full and total equality. Our duty is to secure a better future for our children.

Our time is now.

On last night’s broadcast, Rachel Maddow welcomed back to the show Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an 18-year veteran in the US Air Force, highly decorated and recognized for his skill as an aviator. Fehrenbach is being fired less than two years before retirement because he’s gay.

As Fehrenbach noted, he will be attending the controversial Stonewall Anniversary party next Monday at the White House as a guest of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Let’s hope he gets a chance to personally talk some sense into President Obama.

The date has been set for 1Lt. Dan Choi‘s discharge board. According to Knights Out, an LGBT West Point organization that Lt. Choi helped found, his case will be heard on June 30, 2009 to consider his discharge from active service.

Because he is openly challenging his discharge, Lt. Choi‘s discharge will likely be classified as either general under honorable conditions or dishonorable. In the 16 years history of DADT, no servicemember who has appeared before her/his discharge board has received an honorable discharge.

"Don't lie. Don't hide. Don't discriminate. Don't weaken the military."

Since President Obama and the 111th Congress took office, 264 members of the US Armed Forces, about five every three days, have been fired by the government because they are gay.

It’s tempting to get so enthralled in the battles of the day that we forget how far Americans have come in our understanding and acceptance of LGBT people, and how much work has been done by our elders in the community. As you can see from this article from Saturday’s Columbus Dispatch, 2nd Lt. Rupert Starr has been quietly laying the groundwork for the modern LGBT movement since he came to terms with his orientation nearly 60 years ago.

As the parade passed, he stood near some bushes — a hiding spot in case someone he knew saw him celebrating with thousands of gay people. Rupert Starr had stood up to Nazis during World War II, spending four months as a prisoner of war in Poland, but his participation in a Columbus Pride Festival in the 1990s required more confidence than he could muster.

This year, he is the center of attention: the grand marshal of the 1 p.m. parade and keynote speaker at a Sunday brunch for what’s considered the largest gay-pride celebration in the Midwest.

The 28-year-old loved his college girlfriend but couldn’t bring himself toward physical intimacy or marriage after years of dating. A psychologist helped him acknowledge the reason, persuading him to stop dismissing his feelings for men. At the time, gay life was so underground that Starr thought he needed the book to understand who he was — and that there were others like him.

He told no one of his self-discovery.

Since graduating from Ohio University in 1946, Starr had gained prominence in Columbus through a successful real-estate career. And he would later provide leadership to the Columbus Board of Realtors and Columbus Jaycees.

Meanwhile, Starr began living with interior designer Allan Wingfield, whom he met in 1954 at a bar near Ohio State University [sic]. Some of their gay friends and colleagues in denial had married women; the couple continued a relationship until Wingfield’s death in 2007.

2nd Lt. Starr talks with a reporter

Still, many considered the two “roommates,” not partners. In the early ’90s, even Starr’s two brothers were surprised to learn of their younger sibling’s sexual orientation. During the past decade, Starr has gradually opened up to others. Still, some friends who implicitly knew were never told so, said Loann Crane, a friend for more than 50 years. “I never knew whether he’d come out with it or not,” Crane, 84, said this week. “There are just some things you don’t discuss.”

Starr returned yesterday from a trip with two relatives in which he revisited the area surrounding his former prison camp. Though still disturbed by the horrors of war, he believes he gained strength by living through them.

“To be able to say, ‘I made it; I’m a man’ — that gave me courage,” he said. “That courage evolved into me living my life the way I was born and facing my sexuality. I felt if I could do it in battle, I could do it in my private life.”

So President Obama signed that memorandum yesterday, and it was pretty much what we’d all expected. No health benefits, no social security, no benefits for military personnel, and the effect of the memorandum disappears as soon as President Obama leaves office. The benefits that were offered are not new; they’ve been available for over ten years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VasC9lDsw_4

The signing itself is surprisingly clumsy. I get the impression that President Obama knew that he was doing nothing and was uncomfortable about it, at least I’m hoping that’s the case.

On December 18, 2008, President Obama proclaimed that he was a “fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans”, and then didn’t let the G-word or the L-word pass his lips for six months. It cannot be another six months before he’s prodded to publicly acknowledge us again.

More important than the signing held last night, though, is a nugget of information buried in yesterday morning’s press briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The two big topics in the briefing were the election in Iran and the forthcoming signing, and they bounced back and forth between the two. Skip ahead to 25:27 for some information that I don’t think we’ve heard before.

Q: And on — just one more time on DOMA, “don’t ask, don’t tell” timeline, does the President want to see that overturned in this Congress? I mean, is there a plan to do that in this Congress?

MR. GIBBS: I think, as Senator Reid said, it’s something we can do in this Congress and it’s something that the President is working with members of Congress, working with — on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” working with the Pentagon to ensure that that happens.

(full transcript here)

“This congress” is 2009-2010. I wouldn’t exactly call this a firm commitment, but it’s certainly more specific than the vague Sunday’s “on this administration’s watch” that we got last Sunday.

Of course, I still think it’s reasonable to suggest that President Obama stop the DADT bleeding while Congress works out the details over the next 18 months.