Pres. Obama Meets with Some People Who Are LGBTQ

Yesterday, in commemoration of Stonewall--the civil rights touchstone moment--riot of 40 years ago, the President met with some people who are LGBTQ. I get tired of people who are self-ordained, self-elected leaders of a "community" that is anything but singular in size or shape.

Anyway, meet with some LGBTQ people is what Obama did.

And this is novel, because most Presidents have avoided being seen public with us. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George Bush...and don't get David Mixner excited about Clinton.

In salon.com, the essay about the event was interesting: George W. gave us a "big gift" at this very same time of the year with a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage:

The last time the president of the United States marked gay pride month with anything official at the White House, it was June 2006. George W. Bush decided to throw the weight of his office behind a proposal to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage. After all, the fate of Western civilization hung in the balance. "Our policies should aim to strengthen families, not undermine them," Bush said at the time. "And changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure."

The reception of his ideas was mixed, to put it best:

And while those who were at the reception seemed mollified, other critics were still blasting away. The Servicemen's Legal Defense Network, which represents gay and lesbian troops, held a protest outside the White House over the weekend to urge faster action on "don't ask, don't tell." "We keep hearing that the noble people who are going on Monday are planning to talk about issues and really let the White House know we've got problems," wrote Joe Sudbay on AmericaBlog. "That's BS. Many of them had a chance two weeks ago in the Oval Office to tell the president what they thought, and how many of those groups let him have it?"

Still, the message Obama was trying to convey -- relax, I'm with you -- seemed to sink in. "He's been in office six months, and in six months, not much has happened to help us," said Jerry Hoose, one of the two Stonewall veterans who met Obama privately before the meeting, and a founder of the Gay Liberation Front in New York not long after Stonewall. "But again, six months. I mean, what do you expect? The man is president, not a miracle worker." If nothing has changed a few years from now, keeping gay and lesbian supporters in Obama's corner may indeed take a political miracle. For now, though, the White House is hoping some kind words will do.

Click here for more.

What do you think? He is with us? Against us? Using us?

Pace!

B