Fierce Advocate, My Fat Ass

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is free America about Obama's failure to serve his LGBTQI constituency:

It doesn't really come as a surprise that President Barack Obama, he of the Donnie McClurkin campaign concert and Rick Warren inaugural invocation, isn't the fierce advocate he once promised to be for the LGBTQI community. But even though it's not a surprise, it's still a disappointment.

Although some might say that campaign promises are made to be broken, surely he knows that not all campaign promises are equal. Some cannot be made casually, like promises to end a war. A promise to be an ally, no less a fierce ally, to marginalised people who suffer institutional discrimination, whose inequality is codified into our very laws, who live at disproportionate risk for hate crimes because of the violent prejudice woven into our national fabric, is the kind of promise that cannot be made casually.

...I am well aware of the arguments against his truly leading on this important civil rights issue and pressing the Democratic majority in Congress to get things rolling. I know there are people who say it's politically risky. But so is sweeping healthcare reform. The only difference is that Obama is willing to take the stand that healthcare reform is both necessary and the right thing to do.

Read the whole thing here.