And we don’t blame them. (But we won’t be doing that ourselves!)
We blame Obama.
The national exit polls show a staggering number of homosexual Americans voted for reps of the Republican party this year. The GOP snagged 31% of gay and lesbian voters in this midterm election, compared to the 19 percent in 2008.
Richard Socarides, a former assistant to President Clinton and senior White House adviser on gay rights, explains that the community’s expectations were “high” with this administration back in 2008, as they were optimistic gay rights would get the attention they deserve. Now, two years later, with nothing done, the optimism is dwindling. He explains:
“The president articulated in the early summer of 2009, when he had that event at the White House on the 40th anniversary of [the] Stonewall [rebellion] and had a couple of hundred people in the White House — he said, essentially, give me two terms, and at the end of eight years, I will have accomplished for you what I said I would. I think that some people come out of that as, we’re not prepared to wait. And some people thought it was a bad strategy because they thought it was going to get harder not easier. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this change coming in Congress a long time ago. So, I think that we as Democrats have a lot of explaining to do.”
Exactly. The time is now, Mr. President, not later. Making promises in your first term to do things in your second term, which you don’t even have yet, is wrong. If the polls are any indication, you might not have as much support come re-election time as you think.
Step up, sir and do some of the things you promised.
[Image via WENN.]