Note: I first posted this on the USA forum, but then I figured this was probably a better place for it. If the mods wish to delete the other entry on the USA forum, you have my permission.
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We in the US in the LGBT community know full well that the Democratic Party in general and Obama in particular are seriously dragging their feet on our issues. ENDA seems about three-quarters dead at this point and the survey involved with the future implementation of the repeal of DADT is ridiculously homophobic and may well be a back door, the questions obviously crafted to people to know nothing about gay people. This may well be a measure allowing DADT to be re-implemented at a later time.

As a full and complete community, if we act as one, we have the ability to change the political landscape in this country and we've been far too scared by the left that "If you don't vote for us, the GOP....." Well, Which do we want more? A government that openly spits in our collective eye or or one that pats us on the back and tells us to be patient. Be patient. Just until Obama's second term. Pardon me? We have a Democratic House, a near super-majority in the Senate and a Democratic President and we can't get through legislation that a vast majority of Americans want.

We shouldn't have to wait any longer. We were promised so many things by this Administration and we have been delivered absolutely squat. We have found that we need to fight for our rights at least as hard if not harder with this Administration. Harder, because when we protest, our allies and friends on the left are saying to us "What are you doing? Why are you trying to sabotage your friends?"

Well, friendship is a two-way street, as I've often said. The Democratic Party has not been a friend to the LGBT community. We have been treated like ungrateful children and metaphorically placed at the children's table. The Dems scare us with the prospect of a GOP Administration, well, maybe that's what needs to happen. As Robery Graves wrote in I, Claudius "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud...hatch out!" Maybe that's what we need, another GOP Administration to remind everyone how oppressive they really are and for the Dems to finally give us a real seat at the table and not this song and dance that they give us every four years.

As a community, we give money to Democratic campaigns (well, some of us do), we volunteer, and we vote. I echo the voices of many when I ask you to close your purses to Dems and only give money to candidates who openly support our legislation. If we don't try something else, this problem might be considered our own fault. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn't it time we stopped knocking our heads against the wall?

Z

I did say the Dems had a "near super-majority", which is true. That freakin' D.I.N.O. Lieberman. Oh, I guess he's an independent now. Whatever. American politics of the last several years has been a gigantic hidden study of what it takes before we all knock our heads into the wall.

In this country, the Dems are, for some reason scared silly of the few Reps around and the main item on the GOP menu is disturbing the Obama Administration. We endured eight years of the most controlling, secretive Administration in the history of this country, we had our rights curtailed and were told if we disagreed with his agenda, we were traitors. Now, we are still involved in the same two foreign wars as before and the same GOP who were calling us traitors are now making actual veiled threats against our President's life. The same legislators who were questioning our patriotism are now actively blocking a wartime Presidents. Is this where we call the GOP traitors?

I'm sick of the names, the games and the lies. Are we going to remove the Dems from Congress because they have been hit with more filibusters in two years than any other Administration has ever been hit with in four years? Are we going to pat the GOP on the back and say "Good job. You've brought the whole country to it's knees." Are the Dems going to continue their legislative equivalent of a Porky Pig imitation? Is the GOP going to continue being the party of "No"? Are they EVER going to take responsibility for the terrible state the country was in when Obama was elected or are they just going to imagine that "It was like that when I got here."

Z

Hey Marsha. Unfortunately, there's no way to oust corporations now. As someone said earlier in this thread, corporations now have no ceiling for the amount of money they can give to politicians. In addition, corporations in this country have all the protections given to private individuals. I'm surprised corporations aren't qlready buying and selling politicians in the open. Personally, I support NASCAR like patches for lobbyists money they have taken. Did you take millions from BP? Then you have to wear a big BP patch on your arm. At least we would know who these people are really working for.

Z