It’s gay pride month and as I get ready to attend the festivities in New York, it occurs to me that it’s time for me to give the LGBT community some long overdue props.
They are the single strongest arm of the progressive movement by far. This is a group that knows how to “get her done” while the rest of the progressive movement flails around, split into three factions; those that are trying to figure out how to get shit done, those who sit around expecting that someone else will get it done, and those that perpetually make excuses for why Obama can’t get it done.
Marriage equality is not a national conversation that we were having ten years ago. In the grand scheme of civil rights fights, this one is a fetus and yet we already have marriage equality in six states. The LGBT community deserves all f the credit in the world for obtaining the civil rights due them in record time.
How did they do it? By being relentless! I remember having a conversation with a gay friend of mine last year right after this happened:
This was right after Obama finally came out in support of repealing DATD, and things were looking good in terms of its repeal. I took the position that the LGBT community needed to just calm the fuck down because Obama was obviously moving in the right direction on this issue. My friend vehemently disagreed with me, arguing that pressure needs to be applied until we have full equality across the whole country. He couldn’t have been more right, and I’m happy to offer him a mea culpa for having been so fucking wrong in my assessment of the situation.
In relentlessly pressing forward with an agenda of not compromising on anything less than full equality, the LGBT community is getting shit done in a way that few groups without Goldman Sachs money have. They protest and heckle the president at every turn. They organize boycotts against corporations and advertisers that show even the slightest hint of supporting an anti-equality agenda. They are very well organized, making sure that they leverage their strength in numbers, despite the fact that only roughly 10% of the population is gay.
In short, they ROCK!
The rest of the progressive population has much to learn from the LGBT community. When are we going to start taking notes? They have written the playbook for us. We just need to read it.
So tomorrow, I march with my gay friends who I couldn’t possibly be more proud of. BRAVO!
