Andrew Sullivan on Joe Solmonese's appalling email, the uselessness of the HRC, tomorrow's March for Equality, and Obama's promises.
Maybe Solmonese is right and on January 19, 2017, Obama will have become the best civil rights president the gays have ever had. I sure hope so and I will stand up and applaud till my hands are bleeding if he does.But you don't fricking say that in public in 2009 when you head up the country's largest gay group.
The entire email reads like a battered wife's defense of her husband. It is without self-respect; it is riddled with the self-loathing of low expectations. It confirms every dark suspicion of HRC I have ever had and I have watched it closely now for twenty years. I really think this is the last straw.
If you do not really believe in your own equality, why should anyone else? I know it's difficult and I know the president has a lot on his plate. But you know who really have a lot on their plate? The servicemembers out there risking their lives for our security, enduring sacrifices Joe Solmonese cannot even imagine, serving their country day in day out - only to be treated as pariahs, and fired for the sole crime of being gay. This is wrong; it is unjust; it is cruel; it is ingratitude of the deepest kind; it is disrespect; and it is now sixteen years since we were promised it would happen, as it has in every other civilized country, to no ill effects at all....
That's why I will be marching this weekend, and I hope you will too. And that's why the Human Rights Campaign has become as much a hindrance to our advancement as a help. It is time to draw a line. Stop enabling this battered wife syndrome. If you belong to HRC, demand this syndrome end and withdraw your financial support until they start standing up for the powerless rather than constantly defending the powerful. No mas.
It's a long and impassioned post and this snip doesn't do it justice. Go read the whole thing here.