October 23, 2010 07:46 AM UTC

A Message to Arvadonian

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• by: Aristotle

(Beautifully said – promoted by DavidThi808)

The other day, longtime polster Arvadonian wrote about how he would abstain from voting in the federal races in protest of President Obama’s poor record in “fierce advocacy” for LGBT equality. That prompted much discussion about how sound such a decision others felt that to be, and also a bit of discussion about the state of LGBT affairs in general.

I can’t recall if this came up (there were a lot of comments and I skimmed through most of them) but something that’s been happening in recent weeks is Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” video series. This was prompted by the wave of heavily covered suicides of bullied teens, most of whom were gay or just believed by their bullies to be so. These videos are from various LGBT adults who relate their stories of harassment and victimization when they were growing up, but who survived as assure today’s queer youth that there’s hope; once you get out of high school, it gets better.

This project has quickly gathered a lot of steam, and higher and higher profile celebrities and other VIP’s have come out with videos, and now include non-LGBT people who are coming around to assure the kids that not all straights are out to get them. It’s important to note that a lot of these kids are completely isolated; besides being bullied with the school officials looking the other way, they go to church where they’re told that they’re going to Hell and are an abomination, then go home where their families affirm such drivel. These are the kids that “It Gets Better” is trying to reach.

So how does this affect Arvadonian? Well, none other than President Barack Obama has contributed to this series:

Personally, I believe this is HUGE. Think about it – can you, or anyone, imagine that the President of the United States of America would come out and contribute to a truly grass roots video project like this? And say that queer kids are okay just the way they are? Do you think any Republican would have done this?

I don’t think so. Especially not two weeks BEFORE Election Day.

This video was over at SLOG (the blog of Dan Savage and The Stranger) and it prompted a lot of discussion over there. There were a few people who basically took the “all words, no action” route of criticism, but I want to point you to two comments.

#29

YEAH FUCK THIS!

This is CRAP. It has been TWO WHOLE YEARS and Obama hasn’t fixed thousands of years of homophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism, fear, stupidity, etc.

Fuck you obama! I am so terribly let down by realizing that voting for one moderate liberal president doesn’t instantly transform the world.

I expected to be able to do nothing except spend 5 minutes to vote for ONE GUY and everything would be better without having to do a whole lot about it.

I WANT MY JETPACK!!

All you single-issue Obama-bashers are as nuts as the teabaggers. It’s like you never picked up a book of history in your life.

Posted by Captain Wiggette on October 21, 2010 at 9:16 PM

#179:

I wonder sometimes how many of you remember The Bad Old Days. You may think it’s bad to be queer now, but I was reared by a lesbian couple in the early 1960s, and I remember. They had to be COMPLETELY in the closet, or they could be imprisoned, lose their jobs, lose custody of me to my bio-father, be forced into mental institutions where they could be electroshocked and drugged against their will (the latter happened to one of their friends, when her ex-husband found she was living with another woman – he had her committed to Western State).

For the gay or lesbian living in the 1960s, walking down the street was akin to a soldier going into enemy territory. If anyone could detect any signs of gayness in you, you were basically fair game. If you were beaten and had the temerity to make a police report, you could expect further abuse at the hands of the police – after all, it’s what you deserved for being a “deviate.”

Think about that. That’s in the lifetime of many of us here. That’s part of our experience.

Now, look at this. You have the President of the United States telling gay and lesbian kids that they are okay the way they are. If you don’t see the difference, if you’re just hung up on the fact that he hasn’t yet solved every single problem every individual gay faces, you’re not seeing the big picture here. You’re not seeing how hideously difficult it is to make large-scale societal changes – yet how far we have come in 40 years! Unimaginably far. There is no way my mother and her girlfriend imagined this in 1964. No way. I would bet you money they cried real tears of joy today.

Yes, it’s not enough. But, god, it’s a start, isn’t it?

And remember, he isn’t just President of Greenwich Village and Capitol Hill and the Castro. He’s President of Lubbock, and Peoria, and Fayetteville. I imagine there’s some frothing at the mouth going on in the hardcore god-botherer communities today – and isn’t that always a positive thing?

Posted by Geni on October 22, 2010 at 12:10 PM

Something for you to think about.