Obama, White, & Sharp All In The Sinking DOMA Ship Together

The Leaf is back. We have come out of hiatus. You may all exhale. The reason we are back are to address some issues on the federal level in regards to LGBT rights.

The last time we wrote a blog here was in March. Things seemed to be going well in the country, besides the economy. There was discussion of the repeal of DADT. Since then, more states have legalized gay marriage. America was going in the right direction to equality.

Then, June came along. Pride Month. In a month in which the Stonewall riots mark 40 years of the modern gay rights movement, the federal government began throwing LGBT citizens under the bus again. The US Dept. of Justice moved to dismiss a pending federal case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.

President Obama himself has stated that DOMA is discriminatory and should be repealed. But even former Congressman Bob Barr, it's original author, has stated the very same. The only reason each of them has cited is that it prevents the states from doing what they want. And ya know, that simply is not good enough. Letting states do what they want lead to Jim Crow Laws, bans on interracial marriage, and now bans on gay marriage.

The reason we bring up Bill White and John Sharp, is because of an event we attended last evening in McKinney TX. A member of Stonewall Democrats of Denton County stood up with the last question to them of the evening-- "what is your position on the legality of DOMA, because LGBT people are not second class citizens?", to which a large applause came from the mostly caucasion suburban crowd. Both White and Sharp spent exactly one sentence to state that they "support President Obama's position" and then proceeded to ignore the topic and go on 5 minute diatribes about what they wanted to talk about. Keep in mind, each US Senate candidate had time to give speeched and talk up their love for public education. And keep in mind, they also took the time to actually answer everyone's question in detail. But not this one. The DOMA question was given the brush off, with White pulling the bus up to the curb, and Sharp putting it into reverse to back over us a second time. We found the lack of willing by both candidates to actually answer the question completely disrespectful, not only to the person asking the question, but all LGBT people.

So as LGBT people, or straight readers of this blog, ask yourself what you can do. Until these candidates, and this administration shapes up, then your money should stay in your wallet. The DNC, Obama administration, and these US Senate candidates do not deserve one penny until they can clearly explain why they won't touch the topics at hand. We need a little more audacity! The audacity begins with tough decisions and not waffling.