A call for GLBT people to be more aware of what their interests are, and who represents them, from a bi man who has always had more important fish to fry as a political activist, but now sees that, darn it, he has to speak out-- and be out-- about the American political process where it concerns gay/lesbian people.

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I take part daily in discussions of political issues of the day on a small forum. First I want to share a comment made earlier this week by one of the respected thinkers on this forum, and a heterosexual ally of gay people:

"Gay rights shows much more progress in the same time than on the fundamental issues. Back in 2002, gay bashing was on the rise, gay marriage was nowhere, the polling was totally opposed to gay rights, the public opinion was intolerant, but things are hugely different today.

"In fact, there has been more progress since 2002 than between 1970 and 2000. And a lot of that progress in the political realm has been from the gay conservatives and Republicans, not the liberals and progressives."

Mr. Mulp made a very valid, and deeply discouraging point, having looked at the debacle of DADT Repeal. If there has been more progress drafted by gay conservatives, it is because our liberals and progressives have fallen asleep at the switch.

I have belabored the point with all my friends: 2009-10 was a historic window of opportunity to pass ALL gay rights in a comprehensive domestic-partnerships legislation.

Apparently Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) and the gay Democratic Caucus were not ready, and the gay civil rights movement was not ready, to shepherd such a bill to the president's desk, where it would have been signed. I am convinced it still would be signed if it got there, except now we have 65 more Republicans in the House, so it's a pantload more difficult -- probably impossible.

Frank, one of only four openly gay lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, gave an interview with Playboy magazine recently. It's quite wide-ranging, but as you might expect it does eventually touch on gay issues (it doesn't touch too hard, of course, Playboy IS a heterosexually-oriented magazine).

What distresses me is that Barney Frank seems to be resigned to an incrementalist approach to gay partnerships equality. He acknowledges that gay marriage is going nowhere federally, and he doesn't say for how long.

Frank says...

"I don't see anything about gay marriage happening on a federal level. More and more states will go that way, though. When they do, people will see ... that there are no negative consequences. Places that have gay marriage have had none of the negative consequences that people warned us about. Zero. The divorce rate hasn't gone up. There have been no calamities. Marriage hasn't lost its meaning. Same-sex marriage as a divisive issue is losing its steam. Overall I think anti-gay prejudice is on its way out."

Thus, Frank is counting on the good examples shown by same-sex partners in the states, and a growing number of them, to lessen anti-gay prejudice. Or for indeterminate time to have an effect. Or both.

He pretty concisely has said, "Federal gay marriage? Forget it!"

Frank frankly seems to have lost what one-time Democratic presidential candidate Fred Harris (D-NM) used to call "fire in the belly."

And this was a Playboy interview, of course, so he couldn't get too politically detailed, I suppose. But he didn't say a thing about alternative strategies for getting all the RIGHTS that make people in partnerships first-class citizens.

Now my gay friend at this discussion forum, Danny, who is not a gay disinformationalist and is ordinarily an astute political analyst, disagrees with me (and apparently, with Barney Frank) when I say that the historic opportunity has been lost indefinitely.

But that is what I predicted before the first failed closure vote on DADT Repeal, and I see no reason to change that. We'll all be looking at what happens to DOMA, of course.

But none of that would have mattered if a comprehensive, properly written bill covering same-sex domestic partnerships had been presented to Congress in 2009.

I prefer to call such a partnership a civil union. After all, both of my straight marriages have been just that! (My 1970s gay marriage was necessarily unofficial...)

I don't want to get married again. My long-time man and I strongly agree that we will only have an official partnership if it is the law of the land, and pragmatically speaking, the way to write a comprehensive federal civil-rights legislation is to not call it marriage.

But cutting back to the unpleasant political present, we have the problem of the Republican Party making serious efforts to hijack the gay Democratic vote. Shills like one inhabitant of our discussion board pseudo-named "Trent," a supposed gay in Washington DC, a Republican disinformationalist posing as a gay activist (or else he is really so conflicted he actually believes what he is saying). Trent bashes Democrats, especially Obama and Eric Holder, and supports now-declared Republican candidate for President Fred Karger, and others are working to both depress the Democratic turnout and get gays disgusted enough with the not-do-enough Democrats to cut their uh-huhs off to spite their faces and vote Republican in 2012.

Those who act in haste are condemned to repent at leisure, my mother told me long ago.

As I said in my recent OpEd News column (The Real Significance of DADT Repeal: Not A Victory!), it is a measure of these disinformationalists' success that there is any debate whatsoever about which Party does or does not (however lukewarmly it may seem) champion the interests of gay people.

I will repeat this encomium of political pragmatism until I pass, and I hope my old mentor Dr. Howard Zinn is listening: it doesn't matter what you call a comprehensive bill of civil rights. What matters is that you get the rights, not that you get to call it what you want to.

Authors Website: http://www.watermelonslim.com

Authors Bio:

My name is William Perkins Homans the third, but probably more people know me as the bluesman (and artist) Watermelon Slim.



I've been in the fight against war, fascism, injustice and inhumanity for 47 years. I was at MayDay, 1971, and at the moratorium March the week before. I was one of the leaders of the Great New Jersey Turnpike Stall on my birthday, April 25, 1971.



I bear the scar on my left shin from a neoNazi jackboot, when I was one of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who bounced the NSWPP from Flamingo Park at the Republican National Convention of 1972. My father fought the Nazis in the North Atlantic and Anzio, and I met their spawn in Miami.



My formal education has been first-rate. I wouldn't trade my degrees for Harvard ones. I was raised in the finest private Catholic and Episcopal high schools.
I earned my BA in History and Journalism from the University of Oregon/Eugene. I was also captain of the U of O bowling team, 1984-1986. High game 299. Mentors: Dr. W. Gordon Rockett, Dr. Daniell Pope
1997-2000: Oklahoma State University. M.A., History, 2000, plus the school-teaching curriculum. Mentor: Dr. Ronald Petrin

I am a world survivalist. My politics transcends right and left, perforce. I watch for signs we may transcend in some yet-unknown fashion the vectors and indicators in my environmental and geopolitical analysis.
As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one!"