QUESTION OF THE DAY (Courtesy of JD):

If the rapture took place, would Jesus Christ be really pleased and feel comfortable with people around him wearing crosses around their necks???

AP Photo/Damian Dovargane

I said the same thing about three weeks ago....

President Obama betrays the gay community
We supported you. Time to live up to your promises

By John Aravosis

Jun. 17, 2009 |

Team Obama keeps telling lesbian and gay Americans like me to be patient. If we just wait a little longer, administration officials whisper to us lovingly (and out of earshot of the media), after the White House finishes with healthcare reform and getting the troops out of Iraq, your time will come. In the meantime, cheer up -- we put a gay band in the inaugural parade!

Everyone loves a parade, but we don't like being betrayed. And while gay and lesbian Americans were initially willing to cut our new president some slack, the president's now-clear reticence to follow through on even one of his many campaign promises to the gay community has put the Democratic Party on the precipice of an ugly and very public divorce with this once-solid constituency.

During the presidential primaries, then-candidate Obama promoted himself as the biggest defender of gay rights since Harvey Milk. He would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights, he promised, and he even out-gayed Hillary Clinton: telling gay and lesbian voters that while she was for a partial repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he'd get rid of the whole damn thing.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then, not so much.

About a year before the November election, primary challenger Obama invited Donnie McClurkin, a homophobic gospel singer who claims to have been "cured" of his own homosexuality, to lead a series of concerts in the South in order to woo the black vote. The gays were not amused, but candidate Obama held firm. The gays forgave the Big O until a year later, when then-President-elect Obama chose evangelical preacher (and well-known homophobe) Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer. Again, the gays expressed their ire, Obama wouldn't budge, and his advisors continued to whisper sweet nothings in our ears about how glorious the future would be once Dear Leader was finally in office.....

Read the complete editorial here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/gay_rights/index.html

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Are dental office employees universally hired for how STUPID and TOTALLY INCOMPETENT they are?

An acquaintance called me early Tuesday afternoon.

He called me once...didn't leave a message.

He called again...didn't leave a message.

He called me again five minutes later and then I relented and answered my phone.

"Ivars, did you hear it, did you hear it?" he said to me breathlessly.

Before I could make an attempt to respond to him, gasping for air, he went on.

"New Hampshire just signed on as the sixth state to approve gay marriage. Can you believe it...can you believe it," he continued.

Being the damp blanket I can be responded, "That's nice."

"That's all you can say? What's wrong with you?" Before I got a chance to continue he hanged up on me.

What I wanted to really say was "big whoop." What is all the excitement all about? O.K., it is nice to see another state to recognize same-sex couples as having "equal rights," but the fact is that it means NOTHING. Despite all of the hoopla, there seems to be a total disconnect on these pronouncements when you look at the basic fact that until the basic attitudes towards gay people in general changes, gays and lesbians will continue to be discriminated. Maybe they won't be openly discriminated against as they have been in the past, but there is nothing to stop gays and lesbians to be discriminated against in less obvious and underhanded ways. And then you have the right-wing Bible bangers (actually hypocrites who will proclaim that only God can "judge"), who themselves are making judgment by citing and pigeonholing even the most ridiculous Bible passage with "their interpretation" in order to justify their homophobic paradigms. (My favorite excuse by far has to be when Bible-bangers run out of Bible passages by saying, "If God had intended there to be same-sex marriage, He would have created Adam and Steve and not Adam and Eve.")

The bottom line is that only when President Obama actually takes a real stand on an issue (Heaven forbid) and signs the executive order ending fellow Democrat President Bill Clinton's disastrous "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Then I will share in my acquaintance's breathless excitement and agree that the gay community will have made a significant stride in social justice.