John Aravosis raises really important points here in response to the announcement by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) that Valerie Jarrett from the Obama Administration will headline a big national dinner they are running tomorrow night.
I don’t agree with him100% on how to handle the Obama administration, but he’s right: if we can’t get advances on our biggest issues now, you have wonder when. And in doing so we have to critique the people who have positioned themselves as leaders in the campaign for marriage equality, against the Defense of Marriage Act, against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as so on.
Yes, we want Valerie Jarrett to engage with us and our issues – but that is not an end in itself. It shouldn’t be news that “Valerie Jarrett speaks at gay dinner” and it doesn’t mean anything unless she actually has a serious discussion about what can be done to get the Obama administration out of the corner they have pushed themselves into. I’m not going to pre-judge this appearance, but I can assure you I will be surprised if we here more than platitudes.
The problem for Obama is … that the LGBT community weren’t just trading platitudes in 2008. We were also trading time and money and reputations to support Obama. And we’re still in roughly the same unequal place as before. The trouble for HRC is that while its rhetoric is better than the nonsense we now hear from Stonewall (UK), it is still too much in bed with the Democrats as Stonewall is with Labour. That never helps progressive lobbying in the way it helps right-wingers do backroom deals. So HRC’s tactics probably can’t ever really work, it’s engagement approach is likely to stay wishy-washy, and it will keep missing the woods for the trees.
I’m sick of interviewing people who have to lie to US immigration officials because they’ll never be allowed to see their husbands again if they tell the truth. I am sick of watching politicians run away from both the polls and decent morals which both tell them to act. And I am especially sick of lobby organisations who patronise the LGBT people into meekness. It might just be OK if HRC’s and Obama’s tactics actually worked – but in the best conditions in decades to make progress these tactics simply didn’t work.
So, yes HRC: “no excuses”. I hope you and Valerie Jarrett can get the message as good as you give it!
Tags: Barack Obama gay marriage, HRC failing, HRC gay marriage, HRC national dinner gay marriage, HRC national dinner problem, HRC Stonewall UK, Human Rights Campaign Valerie Jarrett, Valerie Jarrett gay marriage
