Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is big on his talk of "hope" and "change" �" as in "hope for a better future" and "change we can all believe in." But for much of the long primary season, Obama has given short shrift to LGBT community input and attention to our issues. Now that the primary season is over and Hillary Clinton is back in the Senate, it seems Obama is "moving to the middle" �" that dance that all candidates maneuver once the party votes are in and they gear up for the general election. Can we really expect hope and change?
In Obama's case, one could argue that on same-sex marriage, at least, he's as bad as John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. On ABC News last week, just as same-sex marriage became legal in California, there was Obama, saying that he believes marriage is "between a man and a woman." He cribbed those talking points from the likes of Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and others on the right. We've known for months that Obama supports civil unions as opposed to same-sex marriage, but why did he have to utter the six words that all the homophobes use? Is that hope for a better future?
He made a point during the primaries of meeting with African American groups and talking about the LGBT community. But where were the meetings with the LGBT community? Where were the interviews with LGBT media outlets? Except for two cursory interviews with the Advocate and the Human Rights Campaign's forum last summer, the gay community did not hear from Obama directly. That's a shame.
Another of our community's concerns regards the matter of Obama's selection for a running mate. A name reportedly on the "short list" is former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. That would be disaster. Nunn, along with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, was the leading architect of the hideous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that continues to haunt gays in the military today, as they cannot serve openly. That Nunn recently muttered that perhaps DADT is worth "rethinking," can be interpreted as an attempt to moderate his anti-gay position in the event he is tapped as the vice presidential nominee. Even "in the tank" gay Obama supporters like Andrew Sullivan think Nunn would be an awful choice. It's been reported that while Nunn served in the Senate, he forced gay aides to resign. Is this the degree of change we can expect?
Obama has built his campaign message on the future �" moving forward into a new era of more transparency and accountability in government. Selecting Nunn as his running mate would severely undermine that message to the gay community.
In the coming months, Obama needs to make himself available to the gay media, period. Here in California, he needs to take an unequivocal stand against the November ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage and write discrimination into the state constitution. While he personally opposes same-sex marriage, he must put his previous statements that he supports equal rights for same-sex couples into action.
Obama got through the primary season with the help �" and money �" of committed gay supporters serving as surrogates. Now that he is the likely nominee, he needs to take his message to the community himself with real offers of hope and change we can believe in.