I'm seeing this kind of similar commentary far too often from vanilla flavored progressive people, in the GL community and the gayosphere, and it bothers me.
Brittany - I hope you win. Sally Kern is a terrible choice. However, I am so disgusted with the Democrats and what has gone on the last 2 years, I give up. I don't plan on voting in 2010. I don't plan on voting in 2012. Let the Republicans destroy the country. I give up.
If you share those same attitudes as this commenter, you've lost BEFORE November 2. You will NEVER get same gender marriage, DADT or DOMA repeal, passage of ENDA, universal health care or ANY progressive change.
You will see renewed efforts to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment and other anti-gay, anti-progressive legislation.
The steps that have already been undertaken since January 2009 toward undoing the Bush misadministration damage will come under attack by a racist, homophobic, transphobic and breathtakingly ignorant GOP majority.
If you think there's gridlock inside I-495 now, wait until the GOP's Darrell Issa (R-CA) who would become chair of the Judiciary Committee if God forbid that happens, starts doing investigations just for the sake of investigations on the Obama Administration.
If you want Democrats to stand up for you, bottom line is that you are going to have to stand up for yourselves and for them. When they take controversial and brave political stands that are right for the country and stick their political necks out to pass the legislation, you need to reward them with your votes.
As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr once said, 'it is still one of the tragedies of human history that the 'children of darkness' are frequently more determined and zealous than the 'children of light'.
Our enemies damned sure aren't resting. They are organizing. They are planning to bumrush the polls while you peeps suffering from GODS (Gay Obama Derangement Syndrome) sulk on your couches and whine about how he's giving you civil rights 'crumbs'.
Here's some reality cheese to go with that whine. You won't getting those 'crumbs' at a civil rights table controlled by batturd wing conservafools.
Bitching because the Democrats haven't moved fast enough on your pet issues when the previous Caucasian GOP occupant of the White House spent eight years fracking up the country and not giving a shit about what progressives or anybody in the GLBT community thought unless you were a Bush Pioneer or Ranger level fundraiser or CEO shows just how politically immature and clueless some of you are.
It causes me and other TBLG POC's to seriously wonder just how much griping y'all would be doing if the exact same situation was occurring and Hillary Rodham Clinton was working in the Oval Office instead of a few METRO stops away as the Secretary of State. I sincerely doubt you'd be exhibiting the same level anger and frustration with the pace of change if that were the case.
The point is, sitting out an election (or ANY election) as a marginalized group member is NOT an option.
Get it through your heads right now, vanilla flavored GLBT people, you are a member of a MARGINALIZED group and no longer have the same level of white privilege fueled societal juice you had before you came out of the closet.
Sitting out the election isn't 'punishing the Democrats' or 'punishing President Obama', it's punishing your own stupid (yes, I said it) azzes.
But then again, you've had a 100 plus year habit of voting against your own economic and political interests to express your solidarity with 'whiteness' and white privilege to the detriment of the country, so why should any POC be surprised now?
Your white privilege, vanilla GLBT community, will NOT protect you from the GOP idiots who wish to destroy you and permanently roll back whatever meager civil rights coverage you've fought tooth and nail to get and people like Harvey Milk gave their lives and busted their behinds to accomplish.
So if you're in lockstep agreement with the commenter, I have nothing but contempt for you because you're as foolish as the miseducated sheeple watching Faux News.
NAACP founder W.E.B DuBois once stated, "Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."
On November 2 we have a stark electoral choice. The GOP as currently constituted represents the ignorance that DuBois warned about a century ago. Either get off your asses, hold your nose and vote as African Americans and other POC's have had to do for decades or watch as the Repubifools who put us in this jacked up situation regain control of the government and resume building their bridge to the 19th century.
And if you didn't vote, I don't want to hear your complaining when the GOP fun starts, and I'll have nothing but disdain for you because you didn't exercise you right to vote and stop them when you had the opportunity to do so.
POC's ain't having it. Our people and especially POC GLBT people have taken the brunt of the casualties for the GLBT community. We have shed too much blood, fought too hard and gave up too many lives to let GOP control of Congress happen without a fight.
It looks like once again, just like we did when we fought for the Union during the Civil War, when we fought for our rights and helped the United States get a little closer to living up to the words in the Constitution and Dr. King's dream it's on us to be the adults in the room.
Just as GLBT people such as Bayard Rustin, the Dewey's Lunch Counter trans protesters, and countless other GLBT peeps stood up and put their lives on the line for this community, or when we stood in long lines in our precincts to vote in 1998, 2006 and 2008 it may be up to African Americans, other POC's, our younglings and our allies to once again step up and vote in massive numbers not only for ourselves, but to save the United States from destruction.
And if we manage to save the Democratic majority, don't say jack in 2011, 2012 or beyond about 'we kept you in office' while demanding action on GLBT legislation because if I hear that, I'll verbally pimp slap you myself for saying it.