August 11, 2009

What Savage Said

In his Advocate piece, “Was Obama a One-Night Stand?,” Dan Savage swings and misses as many times as he hits — but when he connects, it’s a solid thwock! of leather against ash.

But when he misses, he misses by a mile.

Give it a read, and then come back and see if you wouldn’t call the same strikes I do.

Ready? OK. Here’s where he misses:

Then there was Barack Obama’s open letter to the gay community. “Equality is a moral imperative,” candidate Obama wrote, before reiterating his promise to repeal DOMA.

That letter was crap, and anybody who bought into it was blind. Here’s why.

But the highlight of the campaign for me came during the vice-presidential debate. An Obama-Biden administration would support civil unions for same-sex couples, Joe Biden said, adding that there should be “no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint” between same-sex and opposite-sex couples (except for the “marriage/civil unions” distinction). When Sarah Palin said that she didn’t support same-sex marriage either and that she agreed with Biden that the federal government shouldn’t “do anything to prohibit” visitation or other rights, Biden moved in for the kill: “I take her at her word, obviously, that she thinks there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple.”

Ah, those were good times.

For who, Dan? Is your memory going? This is how it went down at that debate:

Gwen Ifill: “Let’s try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?”

Joe Biden: “No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.”

Never mind the “WTF does he mean, ‘faiths’?” He said NO. He used the word “redefining.” He contradicted himself by saying he doesn’t want to change anything on “the civil side” (and marriage and/or civil unions are a purely civil matter!). He screwed us into the ground. He couldn’t have screwed us into the ground any further if he’d used a pile driver.

Read it again, Dan. Read it again.

But then Obama was sworn in under Rick Warren’s porcine gaze…

OK, fine, but tell me this: Why does everybody — “everybody” meaning “everybody who’s finally awakened from his/her Obama Kool-Aid stupor” — flag the Warren invocation as the adrenalin shot that brought him/her out of said stupor?

• McClurkin. (My first post on that little jerk was posted October 23, 2007.)

• Jakes. (First post: October 26, 2007.)

• Caldwell. (First post: January 21, 2008.)

• …and all the other homophobic bigots Obama’s surrounded himself with since day one.

Rick Warren wasn’t even in the running for the inaugural invocation until mid-December, 2008. Where was the outrage before Warren? Where was the foresight? Was everybody just ignoring the Obamahomophobia Circus?

Rhetorical question.

“Many things persuaded the Gauls to this measure; the delay of Sabinus during the previous days; the positive assertion of the deserter; want of provisions, for a supply of which they had not taken the requisite precautions; the hope springing from the Venetic war; and because in most cases men willingly believe what they wish.”

— Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico (The Gallic Wars)

The difference between candidate Obama and President Obama crystallized for me when NBC’s Brian Williams asked the president if “gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry … have a friend in the White House?”

Not until then? That was June of 2009.

Everything else Savage writes, I’m good with. And I should be happy that Savage finally woke to the real Obama, albeit mere “months” ago — but I’m not. Dan Savage is a smart guy — God knows he must be worlds smarter than I am, because he gets paid to write, and I don’t.

So how come I knew Obama was bad news for gays nearly two years ago?

This is just my frustration overflowing — frustration at waiting for half the damned country, Dan Savage included, to catch up with those of us who saw this coming when Obama was still a long shot for the nomination.

I find no satisfaction in this. It just tires me out. Burns me out. So much that I just want to chuck it, go back to the beach, and give up. I’m not always right, and I’m often wrong — but when I can’t make anyone listen to me (and right now I’m doing a slow burn over the gay “leadership” who are screwing everything up again, in a major way), I just want to give up.

On page two of his article, Savage writes:

Anyone who wonders why I’m so down on Barack Obama — and have been for months — needs to meet my boyfriend: He supported Hillary Clinton during the primary, while I backed Obama. My support wasn’t passionate; I didn’t write Obama a check until after he clinched the nomination. During the primary I was fond of saying, “I’m for Hillary or Barack or both.” But those facts can’t save me from the boyfriend’s wrath. I’m not to blame, he admits, but I’m handy.

Maybe you’re “handy” to your boyfriend, Dan (and why don’t you ever call him your husband? you’re married, after all) — but maybe he’s just cutting you a hell of a lot of slack because he has to live with you.

‘Cause, see, Dan, I do blame you — you and every other blind dreamer who was swept up by Obamania, regardless of timing or degree. You didn’t see it— no, you refused to see it coming, no matter how loudly nobodies like me tried to warn you. And now we’ve got what we’ve got — and what we’ve got ain’t pretty.

You know, I’ve been challenged countless times along the lines of: “Instead of complaining all the time, what’s your solution?” My answer is is: I gave you my solution, which was preventative. You didn’t listen. You believed what you wanted to believe, you ignored all the warning signs, and you voted for Obama in the primaries.

Now I have no “solutions.” I gave you my solution. Now it’s your fault — but it’s our problem.

Thanks. Thanks heaps, for getting both of us into this mess.

Anyway… The rest of what Savage says is good with me. It’s just difficult to get through it all without screaming “I told you so!” at the top of my lungs.

I’m so tired of screaming “I told you so!” … It feels like… like when you repeat the same word (try “book”) over and over, until the word loses all meaning.

It feels like everything I’ve ever said, or will in the future, is meaningless. It doesn’t accomplish a thing if no one listens — and no one (no one who pulls any weight, anyway) ever listens.

So, what’s the use?

And that, friends, is not a rhetorical question.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

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