Michelangelo Signorile in the Advocate:
For [openly gay DNC Treasurer Andy] Tobias, Democrats’ shaky midterm prospects have little to do with their own mediocre track record among those who voted them into power. Republicans are a much easier target for blame. Though the GOP has faced a far-right mutiny by Tea Party zealots and have the smallest minority in both houses in decades, Republicans, we’re led to believe, have somehow miraculously railroaded Obama’s “change” message, forcing him to pander to bigots like pastor Rick Warren. If that’s true, it’s only because Obama and the Democrats let it happen by alienating their own base and playing nice with people who didn’t vote for them—and likely never will.
Why should we be expected to mop up the mess Democrats have created even as we warned them over and over again while they caved in to Republicans? They pandered to conservatives on everything from energy policy and the health care public option to civil liberties and the war in Afghanistan, while spitting on the constituencies in their base who cared about those issues deeply.
And today, the desperate Dems’ message to LGBT voters continues to make little sense. Even while they claim that Obama can’t make progress on LGBT rights because of sinister Republicans, they also claim the Administration has done enormous things for us—more, to quote Tobias, than “any president in history,” as if we’ve really been waiting since George Washington to get the hate-crimes bill passed.
Tobias’s argument is that we must give money to our friends or else our enemies will completely seize control. But how can we continue to give money to friends who sell us out—taking our cash while sleeping with our enemies? How can we give money to the DNC, knowing it will dole the cash out to Democrats who run from our agenda or actively vote against it? If they want us to save them, they’re going to have to treat us a lot better, and right now that means supporting full civil rights. No more settling.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support individual Democrats this year. There are plenty of Democrats who deserve your support because they’ve done some good things and are pushing hard for equality. By all means, give to their individual campaigns. But not a dime should go to the DNC. And if Obama isn’t willing to push the party hard—and come out for full equality, including marriage rights—then we’ll need to think about withholding money from him too in 2012.
