Obama is Gay's Best Friend--To Say Otherwise is Shortstighted, Insulting and Just Plain Dumb

Frederick Douglass? James Baldwin? The two towering historical civil rights and literary icons are spinning wildly and angrily in their graves at the mere mention and use of their names by some gay rights activists to bash President Obama. Their beef against Obama is, of course, that he's back pedalled on his pledge to be a forceful advocate for gay rights, and more particularly to back gay marriage. More on that in a second.

First Baldwin and Douglass. Baldwin did suffer in silence at the many digs, slights and put downs he got for being gay. But Baldwin, and certainly Douglass, waged their tireless battle against racial discrimination and for full black equality and rights. Douglass even drew heat from the top women's rights advocates of his day for vigorously pushing for ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment which explicitly gave the newly freed slaves the right to vote, even though it did not give women that right. Douglass and Baldwin understood one thing and that was that African-Americans languished at the absolute bottom of America's political, economic and social scale, and that blacks as no other group in the nation were subjected to decades of slavery, Jim Crow segregation and massive and relentless terror and violence based solely on their skin color. No other group in America has faced that monstrous obstacle. To them, the black freedom struggle had to take precedence over every other group's struggle. The most cursory comb of Baldwin and Douglass's voluminous writings amply prove that.
Obama is not a hypocrite or betrayer on gay rights simply because he does not back gay marriage.

Obama is the best friend that gays have had in the White House--ever. To say otherwise is short sighted, insulting and just plain dumb.