NYC Gay City News endorsed Obama

[davidinalameda]

http://gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19249408&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=6

In a presidential inaugural address that inspired a teenager from Hope, Arkansas named Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy famously urged Americans to focus not on what the country could do for them, but on what contributions they could make to the nation.

Mind you, we in the LGBT community are not yet nearly at the point where this nation has made good on the contributions it owes to our lives, our families, our well-being, even our equal citizenship. Faced with the choice of two progressive Democrats who have spoken at length and with conviction about the challenges facing our lives, we still don't have the luxury of picking a candidate who will advocate for our right to marry. We must yet take it on faith that the next president will have the fortitude to insist that Congress - including too many stragglers within the Democratic Party - open up the nation's military to out gay and lesbian patriots. It is far from certain that the next time the Democratic Congress takes up an employment nondiscrimination measure it will include transgendered Americans as well as gay men and lesbians among those protected.

But after seven years of George W. Bush, and compared against the prospect of either John McCain or Mitt Romney, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama truly offer hope to LGBT Americans that help is on the way.

Given that the two Democratic contenders share a similar, generally friendly and supportive posture toward LGBT Americans, we ought to think about the message our choice sends about a fundamental question - what our politics should be all about. We are finding our place here and there at the table, but we have also spent much of our life on the outside. The nation needs to hear our views on how American politics can accommodate new voices in the mix.