In an America where everyone, every group and everything gets a commemorative month, you had to figure gays and lesbians would get theirs. Oh, pardon me: Make that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. Actually, the preferred term is probably Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender — LGBT for short — because that’s how President Obama referred to them in his June 1 proclamation.
The bride month is now LGBT month. (It’s also Great Outdoors Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, and African-American Music Appreciation Month, which I thought was every month, based on the CD collection in my car.)
Last Friday I attended a speech former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore gave in Severn, Md. He and those in attendance weren’t feeling any part of Obama’s LGBT proclamation. None at all. But for the most part, I found little to object to in it.
Obama wants to end discrimination against the LGBT community in federal housing programs and federal jobs. Fine. He appoints qualified people from the LGBT community to positions in the executive and judicial branch of government. Even better.
But he crowed about signing the bill to end the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Frankly, I’d feel more comfortable with Obama’s crowing if it came from a president who actually served in our armed forces. While “don’t ask, don’t tell” and excluding gays and lesbians from the military seem wrong on the surface, there was a certain logic to it.
When I was in the military, men and women were kept in separate barracks. We trained separately. I suspect the reasoning had something to do with one gender being attracted to another.
Gay men are, by definition, attracted to other men. Wouldn’t that create a problem in the barracks? Obama would have done better to simply make training and barracks living coed. That’s what his ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” amounts to.
Where Obama really drove me nuts was with this line:
“At home, we are working to address and eliminate violence against LGBT individuals through our endorsement and implementation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.”
Oh, are you now?
Neither Obama nor his minions who support “hate crimes” legislation can point to one “hate crime” that the Shepard-Byrd Act has prevented. Any gay or lesbian (or bisexual or transgender person, for that matter) who feels big, bad Obama is going to protect him or her from gay bashers is sadly mistaken.
What’s needed is not the Shepard-Byrd Act, but more Pink Pistols chapters nationwide. The Pink Pistols are, far and away, my favorite LGBT organization.
Pink Pistols members don’t wait for presidential proclamations or congressional statutes for their protection. Their goal is to protect themselves.
“We are dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community,” reads a statement on the Pink Pistols website. “We no longer believe it is the right of those who hate and fear gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or polyamorous persons to use us as targets for their rage. Self defense is our RIGHT.”
Well said, although I shudder to think of what a “polyamorous” person might be. If there’s any one problem I have with the gay rights movement, it’s that members of it want to expand their umbrella.
Consequently, those who thought they were supporting the rights of gays and lesbians to be protected from discrimination now find themselves supporting bisexuals and transgender folks. Now members of the Pink Pistols want “polyamorous” people added to the mix.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see who gets added next.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
