Losing Hope in Obama

Oddly, Obama threw a premature haymaker but it wasn’t aimed at Clinton. The target was the GLBT community. Obama’s wild swing involved having four abrasively anti-gay gospel singers represent his campaign on his “Embrace the Courage” gospel music tour in South Carolina. The gay-bashing headliners included Reverends Donnie McClurkin and Hezekiah Walker, Pentecostal pastor of Brooklyn mega-church, the Love Fellowship Tabernacle and Mary Mary (a sister act duo).

The Mary Mary sisters compare gays to murderers and prostitutes. In an interview with Vibe magazine, one of the singers said, “They [Gays] have issues and need somebody to encourage them like everybody else - just like the murderer, just like the one full of pride, just like the prostitute.” [...]

Obama justifies his embrace of the evangelicals saying he’s “reaching out to people he doesn’t agree with.” Responding to a controversy he should have or did anticipated - Obama mentioned the black community’s “problem with homophobia.” Yet after the tour when asked why the campaign would seemingly reject gay voters for far-right leaning blacks a campaign insider replied, “We got what we needed to get out of it.” (source)

I had this hope of voting for Obama. I say “had” because he’s lost my vote, and he was going to be my vote for President, at least in this point of the game. And it really does seem to be a game to these people, doesn’t it? In 2004 it was all about the so-called gay marriage threat. At least they aren’t being quite to blatant about that anymore - so far. But I really thought that Obama was above this kind of sleaze. Turns out, he’s just like the rest of them.

I’m sorry, but if you hang around people who compare me to a murderer and a prostitute, and you say nothing about that, then you implicitly agree with them. And if that’s really how Obama feels about me, he can go screw himself. Like the article summed up about Obama’s campaign...

Are they consistent in their message and actions? Do they pander from group to group? Do they pit one group of people against another group? At this point the answers for Obama appear to be no, yes and yes.

The truth is, I heard about this a week ago when all of this was coming out. I started to become wary of him then, but was trying to keep an open mind. But what he has done is really no different from what President Bush did in 2004 when he told the religious nut cases that there would be gay marriage everywhere if he were not elected. And after the election, there wasn’t any further mention of gay marriage. Not a word, except from the religious right who were left wondering why he lied to them. Go figure. Bush lied? Shocking.

As Obama’s campaign insider replied, “We got what we needed to get out of it.” Yeah, just like George Bush.

Are they all this way?

So now, I guess I’ll take a stronger look at Hillary. I’ll be watching the debates tonight. I don’t even watch the Republican debates. I know that I have no place in the America that any of them are hoping for, other than being a hair dresser or a decorator. That’s what they want our place to be. The Republicans would like us all to go back to the good old days when people went to church regularly, families were happy (outwardly at least), where “gay” really did mean “happy”, the sun was always shining, the clouds always had a silver lining, and gay people were bashed left and right with the police doing a lot of the bashing and the general public asking, “What’s wrong with that?” Happy times!

Here’s the bigger question: If they are all liars, who will say and do anything for a vote, who do you vote for?