For the record, it needs to be stated: this brouhaha over Pastor Rick Warren is not a strategic protest from “the left.” To say this is a concerted effort by the whole of the liberal or democratic wing is false.
For the record, this is also not the creation of the entire GLBT. That’s also false. The transgender community is mortified that the candidate we busted butt to get elected is being blasted for the choice of Pastor Warren. We’re worried about staying alive – uh, employment?!? This low-level issue is a tempest in a teapot. And the bisexual and gay / lesbian people of color are also not uniformly lock-stepping into this criticism of President Elect Barack Obama over the invocation selection.
There are so many more important issues to be raising our voices over that this isn’t even remotely funny!
It seems that every gay and lesbian activist leader from every org, former and current, has been parading through every media outlet, taking swipes at President Elect Obama’s choice. Alarmingly, it seems the echo chamber they’ve been working has succeeded in making the convenient perception be that the entire “left” as it were, is actively protesting Obama’s selection of Warren.
On MSNBC’s Hardball, gay activist Mike Rogers describing how “diverse” the gay community is had this to say: “I actually use the gay community as a way to unite and bring everybody together.” That was a shocker. Certainly the trans community’s history has been anything but feeling “included” beyond the “T” slapped onto missions and speeches (something which Rogers, to his credit, didn’t patronize – preferring to use the more accurate descriptor, “gay community”).
“We have seen for centuries, certainly for decades, of how gay people have led the way” on uniting. Centuries, hmm?
But I do think Rogers has a point to be made, as he continued. “For example, it was Barack Obama who brought in Pastor Warren, and it was the gay community that stood up and said this was wrong…. Pastor Warren said “I need to change. Something about the language I’ve been using is not inclusive. It’s divisive. I’m going to recognize that.”” In essence, this garbage about holding our tongue and being “tempered and measured” (gee, where have we heard that before?) is doomed to fail. You make change be doing exactly what HRC, NGLTF, Rogers and all the others plastered on media have done the past couple weeks – point taken.
“So strong, I can't let it pass.
I gotta tell you all about it.
I gotta scream and shout it!” — Uncontrollable Urge, Devo
That said, in typical fashion these parties have gone forth without bothering to ask whether anyone else thought this a worthy expenditure of time, political capital and issue prioritizing. Big GLBT (or “the gay community” as Rogers would put it) owns this issue entirely while the rest of us are being accused by association.
Attention media! This is purely the product of leaders in the gay and lesbian community and their lead organizations. It allows great face time on media. It allows wonderful PR to their own and the rest of the world in showing “Hey! Look at us! We’ve got political muscle!”
It’s also (most importantly) a great leveraging tool to pry out more fundraising from the wealth that support causes du “GLBT” (in quotation because in reality, as everyone knows, it’s GL ………….. b … t)
Yes folks, funding makes the activist world go round. This type of media massaging creates a conveniently useful straw man to then waylay the crap out of – it makes great mainstream media theatre. It then draws a blizzard of greenbacks on same-sex marriage (the money button).
Demonstrating power and collecting money, that’s what’s behind this. NOT the left, not the other subsequent groups within this PC GLBT concoction. Mainstream Gay. Mainstream Lesbian. Mainstream power!
So attention media, please get the story accurate! Gay outrage, strategy, protest – much more accurate. But left (or liberal), or GLBT strategy, outrage, protests? No. We aren’t even in that vehicle. We aren’t going there.
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