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Caveat: I voted for Obama rather enthustiastically (compared to some of us.) While I supported Joe Biden and then Hillary in the primaries, I found Barack easy to like, even if some of his more fervent DU supporters were a bit, uh, confrontational at times. I never once disparaged anyone as a cultist or any other pejorative, but fought very hard when the primary candidate I supported was maligned, in my opinion, unfairly and viciously.
One of the more heated battles during the primaries was over the Donnie McClurkin affair. I'll have to admit, this was one of the few times I felt completely alienated from Obama as a potential president. I thought he was using and enabling homophobia in the religious black community in order to garner support.
When GLBT DU'ers and those who support us spoke up about it, vociferously, we were accused of using it as a political weapon. We were accused of being partisan Hillary supporters and only using McClurkin as a convenient club.
Many of us wrote long, impassioned posts, explaining, in detail, how dangerous Donnie McLurkin and his cohorts are, the horror and prejudice that the ex-gay movement evokes, the despair of GLBT people of color in being caught in the middle, with their own families oftentimes participating in the demonization and attacks on gays and lesbians.
The anti-gay constitutional amendments that have attacked our families only succeeded, because the anti-gay forces were able to harness the exact same fear and prejudice that Donnie McLurkin uses to scare the same religious communities into voting overwhelmingly in favor of persecuting gays and lesbians.
That is why we spoke out when we did. That is why we repeatedly protested being used as a political fundraising tool.
We now see the very people at DU who abused us and castigated us for speaking up about DOnnie McLurkin and his ilk, suddenly proclaiming their shock that all these Jim Crow constitutional amendments passed. They express their bewilderment and affirm their support of us as a community under siege.
Maybe we can use this election cycle as a learning tool. Maybe it has indeed opened a few eyes. Maybe the next time a politician or his aides use a community as a bogeyman to raise funds or seek votes, we will ALL, straight and gay, be outraged and understand the ramifications of appealing to our darkest natures.
I have real hope that President Obama will use the bully pulpit to move the country in the right direction on GLBT issues. I think he understands what we are suffering through and I think he means to address it.
To those of you who attacked us for being angry about McLurkin: you're witnessing exactly why we were so pissed off. You're seeing what happens to us when those attitudes are accepted and condoned and given a pulpit. If there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that I hope what has happened to the GLBT community in this election cycle has given you a little more insight into how the specific fear and hatred of the gay community is harnessed and enabled.
Speaking for myself, I'm gratified that so many of you do support us. Maybe now we can all move forward together and finally defeat the institutional foundations of homophobia.
It's going to be a long, ugly fight and we need all the allies we can get.
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