Longtime activist Andy Thayer is angry and he’s taking his anger from Chicago to Washington. Thayer, you may remember, co-founded the effective online StopDrLaura campaign with fellow activist Robin Tyler, among other actions.
Here’s the press release he sent out this morning:
Pro-LGBT Picket of Obama This Saturday Moved from White House to HRC Gala
In reaction to the announcement yesterday that President Obama will address a black tie fundraising gala of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on Saturday, October 10th, organizers of a pro-LGBT picket originally scheduled for that night at the White House have instead moved the picket to the site of the HRC gala. The picket will begin at 6 PM in front of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, on the northeast corner of Mt Vernon Place NW and 9th Street NW, Washington, DC.
While the picket organizers will be participating in the Sunday, Oct. 11th Equality March, they charge that the march organizers have been going easy on the Obama administration and the Democratic Party in general.  Barack Obama was long on pro-gay promises during the campaign, they say, yet short on delivering on them once he took power in late January.
“The time for talking is over,†said Andy Thayer of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net), one of the two organizations sponsoring the picket.  “This President promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he promised to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he promised to pass the pro-LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Act and a whole host of other things.  Instead, he’s delivered on nothing while embracing anti-gay bigots Rick Warren and Donnie McClurkin.  The last thing we need is more flowery rhetoric in front of rich, self-effacing gays and lesbians dressed up like penguins.â€
The picket is cosponsored by the Dallas-based direct action group, Queer Liberaction (queerliberaction.moonfruit.com), a group which played a leading role in organizing an effective community response to the violent police raid on a Fort Worth bar.  ”The Obama administration has likened LGBT relationships to incest and bestiality,†said Queer Liberaction co-founder Blake Wilkenson.  “He cited his ‘Christian beliefs’ for the reason why he now opposes equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.  He refuses issue a stop-loss order to prevent purges of lesbian and gay soldiers.  If we are going to get real change out of this White House, we need to make demands of this President.  As the great anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass put it, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’â€
For more information about the Saturday, October 10th pro-LGBT picket of President Obama, contact the Gay Liberation Network at LGBTliberation@aol.com or 773.209.1187, or Queer Liberaction at LGBTliberaction@gmail.com or 214.679.6321
More information can also be found at the Facebook event for the picket at the following URL:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=159278506521&ref=share
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Also WestBoro Baptists will be there to Protest against the LGBT community ;
http://www.godhatesfags.com/schedule.html
10/10/2009 6:15 PM – 7:00 PM Washington, DC Washington Convention Center – Obama Hates You dumb fags! 809 Mt. Vernon Place NW 13th Annual HRC National Dinner – what, you’re going to have an all the feces you can eat bufet? YUCK! You stupid fags think Obama gives a darn about you? No, he hates you. He is going to use your money and your resources and then when he shows himself for what he is, he will merely destroy you along with the rest of this nation of self-loathing hypocrites. Your sodomite ways are nothing different from every other false religious system, and you know The Beast is Muslim, right? Uh, hallo?! But more to the point, God has done this thing. You have so enraged Him that he has sent you this creature to be your ruler. You think you can unseat God from His throne, but all the while God is laughing at you all. This is some entertaining stuff to watch. 2Peter 2:12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; Jude 1:10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Jeremiah 9:9 Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Praise God for His visitations on this evil nation which has forsaken ALL His Commandments! AMEN!
BULLSHIT. This EXACTLY the thing we need to do. Barack “I’m a lying homophobe” Obama deserves nothing but contempt from all self-respecting queers. Protest and organization have forced Obama to make this gesture of attending this fundraiser. Protest and organization forced Bill Clinton to come out in favor of gay marriage. Protest and organization has forced Congress to propose bills repealing DOMA and DADT one week before the march.
Lobbying and licking the Democratic Party’s ass hasn’t gotten us shit.
Barack Obama already has a press office. He doesn’t need us to make apologies and excuses for him.
http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/18/no-more-waiting-for-crumbs
COMMENT: SHERRY WOLF
No more waiting for crumbs
Sherry Wolf, author of Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation [1], makes the case for demonstrating in Washington at the National Equality March on October 11. Sherry is currently on a speaking tour of the East Coast [2].
September 18, 2009
THE NEWS this week that New York Rep. Jerry Nadler has proposed legislation to repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) would have been sufficient to quell the demands of LGBT activists one year ago.
Today, Nadler’s bill is a welcome step. But the fact that it comes seven months into the presidency of a man who promised to repeal DOMA–and amid comments from Democratic leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that getting rid of the federal anti-marriage equality law isn’t a “priority”–highlights the molasses pace of LGBT rights legislation and the bankruptcy of the incrementalist strategy that has guided the LGBT movement for decades.
Like the moribund Equal Rights Amendment campaign for women’s constitutional equality–initiated in 1923, reintroduced in 1972 and never passed by the required 38 states–LGBT gradualists have argued for a state-by-state legislative approach to winning change.
Enough begging for crumbs. If we want equal rights for LGBT people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states, we have to demand it from the federal government–and that means getting out and marching on October 11 in Washington, D.C.
That’s what Generation Twitter and thousands of others–via Facebook, street heat and word of mouth–have been expressing in protests across the country since the passage last November of California’s anti-equal marriage referendum Proposition 8.
President Barack Obama’s own equivocation these last months shows the limitations of an electoral strategy–and the importance of struggle.
He is the first president to publicly utter the word transgender and to honor the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots last June. Yet his Justice Department first insultingly upheld and then opposed DOMA. And Obama continues to drag his feet on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell”–a policy that its own author, Gen. Colin Powell, calls for ending.
The relationship between LGBT activists and the Democratic Party has been a dysfunctional one. The Democrats court LGBT votes and money, but offer few gains and a fair share of abuse in exchange.
Notably, openly gay Rep. Barney Frank has refused to sign on to Nadler’s DOMA repeal bill, saying, “It’s not anything that’s achievable in the near term.” Frank, quite busy these days shoveling bailout money to the Wall Street bankers, was also instrumental in tossing transgender people out of proposed employment non-discrimination legislation in 2007.
For LGBT activists wooed by the Democrats, ditching the more militant strategy that won a hearing in the first place for a “don’t rock the boat” approach is the price to play.
Thirty-five years have passed since gay civil rights legislation was first proposed in Congress, yet LGBT people remain an unprotected class of citizens. Whereas the denial of the rights of gays to work for the federal government, for example, was enacted with the stroke of a president’s pen in Executive Order 10450 in 1953, no such swift action has been taken to overturn decades of institutional discrimination.
When Bill Clinton was in the White House, it wasn’t until nearly six years into his presidency that he Executive Order 11478, providing partial relief for lesbian and gay federal employees–not including 3 million military personnel.
But the fact that his action left intact sodomy laws (finally overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003), anti-same-sex marriage legislation (which he signed), the military’s unequal status for LGBT people (which he introduced!), and never mentions the rights of those who are transgender, exposes the failure of the electoral route for winning civil rights for sexual minorities.
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WE’VE GOT to strike while the iron’s hot. Today, political tectonic plates are shifting rapidly, and groups and individuals need to get on board or step aside to let a new generation push ahead for full equality.
When Harvey Milk’s protégé Cleve Jones put out the call for the National Equality March on Washington in October, almost every major LGBT group balked, arguing that there wasn’t enough time, and a march wasn’t the right strategy.
But the force of events and popular sentiment compelled organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to endorse this march. It’s a positive sign that HRC feels the pressure to endorse–while grassroots activists shaping the march haven’t watered down its demand for full equality now.
Unlike marches of the recent past, this one will not be brought to you by Miller Beer, Citibank or any other corporate entity. Its bare-bones budget is posted on its Web site [3], and celebrities like Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga are volunteering their services and paying their own way. It’s grassroots all the way.
New activists are showing the way forward. When Black lesbians Aiyi’nah Ford and Torian Brown were kicked out of a Silver Springs, Md., diner for embracing, they called a protest in late August–and then got involved in building the march on Washington. A police raid on the Rainbow Lounge bar in Forth Worth, Texas–carried out on the night of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion–sent patron Chad Gibson to the emergency room. Outraged LGBT folks called a protest–and now they’re also building for the October 11 march. So are the local LGBT people in Atlanta, who responded with protests after an early September raid at the Eagle bar.
All of these actions have made international news and are forcing authorities to apologize and change policies.
Many transgender people, accustomed to being pushed into the shadows, have thrown themselves into building this march–from veteran Florida activist Donna Lee, who serves on the steering committee, to newer radicals like Dove Paige Anthony in Chicago’s Join the Impact. Trans voices will be heard from the stage as well.
Whether the National Equality March draws tens of thousands or many more is hard to tell since so many established media outlets are ignoring it–though CNN, MSNBC and the LGBT cable network LOGO have agreed to give it exposure.
No matter how many turn out to march on October 11–or attend the vast array of workshops the day before–it will help punctuate a turning point for LGBT civil rights.
And a new network of activist groups will emerge from this march: Equality Across America. As Massachusetts activist Gary Lapon puts it, “We are not simply organizing to protest, but protesting to organize.”
The new mood for LGBT equality is a reflection of a generation that grew up with unprecedented cultural exposure to sexual and gender variance, yet lives with draconian laws and organizational strategies that asphyxiate dynamism and shut down debate. No more crafting our demands to suit the tepid conservatism of a bygone era. We want it all!
President Obama, this is our Rosa Parks moment. When will you allow LGBT people sit at the front of the bus?
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[1] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?products_id=1774
[2] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/event.php?id=23
[3] http://equalityacrossamerica.org/blog/?page_id=2501
[4] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Thank you for sharing this very scary POV from the myopic folks over at WestBoro.
We’ve come to expect this clownish behavior from them. But the very very scary part is this: “But more to the point, God has done this thing. You have so enraged Him that he has sent you this CREATURE to be your ruler.” We know that they and God “hate fags.” But this is the kind of dehumanizing that some nut can eventually think gives them permission to do violence on us and Obama.
Personally, since the HRC dinner is also honoring he Shepards on the anniversary of Matthew’s murder – I think that in addition to cops, someone out to do that angel-wing, back turned to the antigay protesters counter-demo that Matthew’s friends did at his funeral.
Criticizing the president and LGBT leaders is one thing – but badmouthing that leads to violence is another. Someone needs to symbolize peace – and why shouldn’t we take that up?
Actions speak louder than words….but I fail to see how protesting the dinner will solve anything but gain media coverage. I will be at the HRC Dinner with my partner and Sunday’s National Equality March. I look forward to hearing President Obama. Hopefully he will use this primetime spot to bring a message of hope, inspiration and empowerment coupled with action on key issues. We are tired of being told to wait at the back of the bus while other issues take priority. Mr. President standup and use your political capital and bully pulpit to rally the call for true equality and justice. President Obama deserves respect for his willingness to address the country’s largest LGBT Civil Rights…Hopefully it will be more than flowery words but a call to action and promise…Now is the time for true Equality. Equality at home…Equality in the workplace…Equality for all Americans!!!
Actions speak louder than words….but I fail to see how protesting the dinner will solve anything but gain media coverage. I will be at the HRC Dinner with my partner and Sunday’s National Equality March. I look forward to hearing President Obama. Hopefully he will use this primetime spot to bring a message of hope, inspiration and empowerment coupled with action on key issues. We are tired of being told to wait at the back of the bus while other issues take priority. Mr. President standup and use your political capital and bully pulpit to rally the call for true equality and justice. President Obama deserves respect for his willingness to address the country’s largest LGBT Civil Rights group…Hopefully it will be more than flowery words but a call to action and promise…Now is the time for true Equality. Equality at home…Equality in the workplace…Equality for all Americans!!!