Warren, Obama, and Gay Rights

I have been dismayed with the choice of Rich Warren by President-Elect Obama as a key participant in the inauguration. In particular, this choice confirms my suspicions (raised last spring) about Obama that his centrism and religious beliefs ultimately may harm the LGBTQ community, especially in light of the numbers of Obama supporters who turned out to be homophobes in California. Granted, Obama has promised to include diverse groups in his administration so as to represent a cornucopia of voices, rather than a political ideology. But, his refusal to be on the "right" side of this historical issue is troubling, and it remains to be seen whether he will sacrifice sexual minorities--including all of my voracious friends who marched in the Chicago PRIDE parade with pink Obama shirts--when it is politically expedient so as to achieve a larger political goal. Obama has been and remains a key figure of hope, an audacious hope in an America which no longer is beholden to and hostage of the "agents of intolerance," so many of whom, we've discovered, are so intolerant because of their own self-loathing. Rev. Haggard? Senator Craig? And, I still believe, Rev. Robertson?

However, are we looking at the sort of hope that Harvey Milk sought and that LGBTQ activists have fought for for decades? Or, a hope that Obama won't slide into the "don't ask, don't tell" backstabbing of Bill Clinton, once his own honeymoon was squandered, and he had to make policy in a "center-right" nation.  

Frank Rich, writing in the NY Times, has a great column and much to say on this topic and the fact that gay people are "likable enough" for the Obama camp which is reveling in its political capital by choosing Warren. One of my favorite moments: 

But we're not there yet. Warren’s defamation of gay people illustrates why, as does our president-elect’s rationalization of it. When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

Indeed. I'm all for moving the country to a new position and doing so in a way that ensures Proposition 8 disasters don't happen again. But I grow tired of the "need" of homosexuals to subordinate their rights for party unity without much in the way of progress on an institutional level. We may be winning the cultural wars one bloody battle at a time, but we are often failing politically. And it is those losses which will scar the face of American human and civil rights for a generation, despite the newer opportunities LGBTQ individuals may have in the United States today.