Atlantis Alumni

Monday, January 18, 2010

MLK Day After A Terrible Year For Gay Rights

If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be speaking out for gay rights; he would be the fierce advocate for the gay community that Barak Obama claimed to be before he reneged on his campaign promises to us. Under a Democratic congress and a Democratic president, during the past year we have seen gay rights losses and a president who refuses to be an advocate for the gay and lesbian citizens of this country. Perhaps finally the gay community, which has looked for help to the Democratic Party for so long, will look elsewhere to third party candidates willing to go to bat for gay rights.

In Massachusetts a Democratic candidate for the senate may lose tomorrow to a Republican in the race for Ted Kennedy's old seat. Part of the reason for this is that the Democratic Party base is demoralized after Obama's first year in office. Rather than exercise leadership, this president has ceded the role of leader to the political hacks in the House and Senate. Rather than push his campaign agenda forward in a manner that protects his base, Obama refuses to fight for progressive Democratic values in the hope that he can achieve bipartianship with far right wing Republicans. Obama has managed to thoroughly demoralize his base. If the Democrats lose the senate seat in Massachusetts tomorrow it will be Obama's fault.

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