Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan give President Obama a deserved failing grade on LGBT rights

Dan Savage speaks for a lot of people when he blasts President Barack Obama for his silence on LGBT issues since taking office in January. I had been inclined to have some patience when it came to this because the country was/is such a mess with the financial meltdowns, the foreign policy fiascos etc. But Savage has woken me up with his unsparing remarks on MSNBC yesterday.

Even more sobering is the column written by Andrew Sullivan which personalizes the damage the current discriminatory policies really hurt LGBT people.

“…It’s tedious to whine and jump up and down and complain when a wand isn’t waved and everything is made right by the first candidate who really seemed to get it, who was even able to address black church congregations about homophobia. And obviously patience is necessary; and legislative work takes time; and there are real challenges on so many fronts, especially the economy and the legacy of war crimes and the permanently restive Iraqi and Afghan regions we are constantly in the process of liberating from themselves. No one expects a president to be grappling with all this early on, or, God help us, actually leading on civil rights. That’s our job, not his.

But I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away.

Here we are, in the summer of 2009, with gay servicemembers still being fired for the fact of their orientation. Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights, and having no plan in any distant future to do anything about it at a federal level.”

Here is a LINK to Sullivan’s piece which details the issues facing him as a non-citizen in the US who is HIV-positive.