Obama, The Imperfect Presidential Choice for Gay People

I hate that discrimination against LGBT people has forced me into being a single issue voter. For many Gay people like me we have few options in the upcoming presidential election. As I see it there are three options for everyone else and one for us.

The three choices are;

Vote for a Republican candidate,stay home and don’t vote, or vote for Barack Obama.

I don’t see the Republican option as a viable one for LGBT people because the current candidate will set back our equality for at least a decade if elected. If you are an LGBT person and you think a Republican candidate might be an option for you, perhaps because you're financially well off and think the Republicans will help you protect your assets, you’re probably right. You’ve chosen your wealth over your equal rights and those of your community. If this is the case, please stop reading and leave this page because you’re too stupid to do the right thing and too selfish to look beyond yourself.

I’ve supported the option of staying home before to send the message to Democrats that we are not a sure thing. I think that is what happened two years ago in the midterm elections. Obama stuck us on the back burner, courted the center and right of the political landscape and lost big. I think he has gotten the message and has woken up. I would site his decision to order his Justice Department to not defend DOMA after the midterm elections as they did during his first two years in office, and his public coming out for equal marriage this past May. Either way the stakes are too high this time around to stay home and not vote. Gay people must come out and vote.

For a Gay man like me, Obama is really the only option for the 2012 presidential election. I don’t think he is perfect. I think he has played politics with our civil rights, and I think his first two years in office with a Democratic Senate and House were a complete waste of a mandate for change. I also think he lied about evolving on Gay marriage for three years and am happy he has now supported it and that the Democratic party has it as a platform this election.  I believe he was always for equal marriage but lacked the balls to admit it. My reasoning is this. He is a constitutional law professor. He knows that marriage is a civil right and that not permitting it for one group of people is discrimination. He also has a strong understanding of this country’s principle of the separation of church and state.

So while flawed and imperfect, Obama is our best chance at full equality in the next four years. At a minimum I believe we can count on him to not set us back from the gains we have made. At best his next four years will put and end to the issue of our equality so Gay American’s can break out of our discrimination enforced one issue voter prison and have the freedom to base our votes on a majority of important issues this country faces. A right afforded to our heterosexual counterparts since the foundation of this country.

Michaelsthought