by Jacob Whipple
President Obama,
You seem to have trouble drawing up a game plan to support your campaign promises regarding civil rights for the LGBT community. You’ve had nine months of limited progress, which includes the Easter Egg Roll and federal benefits for LGBT families that does not include health care. You’ve had many activists, pundits, journalists and bloggers calling on you. Poor Robert Gibbs is pressed on these issues constantly without being able to give any satisfactory answers. You had a fabulous dinner with the HRC and a 150,000 strong march the day after, all hoping to capture your attention and garner results.
Alas, we’ve only gotten the same flowery promises in eloquent and motivational speeches without any action or timelines to back it up. Your plate is undoubtedly full, requiring your attention elsewhere. Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty to draw up your timeline for you. Don’t worry; I’ll make it easy for you. All you have to do is say a couple of words and sign a couple of papers.
The Matthew Shepard Act
Matthew Sheppard - brutally killed Oct. 12, 1998
We’ll do this one first because it’s a gimme. The House has already approved it and it is part of the Defense Authorization Bill for 2010, which has to pass. It’s an easy win; it’s the low hanging fruit. All you have to do is hold a quick press conference in which you tell Congress, “The Matthew Shepard act is an important piece of hate crimes legislation that will help protect the LGBT from physical violence without interfering with the religious right to preach against homosexuality. I urge the Senate to quickly pass this bill as part of the Defense Authorization Bill so that I can sign it into law.” That’s it! The Senate will do the rest and then you’ll have your first major victory for the LGBT community.
Despite having written the speech for you, it’ll probably need to be re-written by your own people. We’ll give them till the end of the week so that you can release it by October 19th and Congress can approve it by the end of the month. It would be fitting for this to be signed into law 11 years to the month after Matthew Shepard was killed, especially when there has been almost one LGBT hate crime committed every hour of every day since his passing (more than 77,000 as of 2007 as reported by the FBI). But hurry, because it would be embarrassing to have Congress pass this bill the day before you’re scheduled to endorse it!
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Lt. Daniel Choi - discharged for being gay
This will have to come in three parts. First, cut all funding for the trials and prosecution of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell cases. Since DADT has been enforced it has been estimated that we have lost over 13,000 qualified troops and over $363 million as a financial impact. Since it’s a recession you should be making cut backs anyway.
Second, issue a stop-loss or an executive order halting all enforcement of DADT until Congress can pass the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (which won’t happen until next year since the legislative session is virtually over). As you know, there is a precedent for this as Truman penned Executive Order 9981 for the desegregation of blacks in the military in 1948. Critics claim that the comparison is faulty as it took 6 years from the signing of the Order until the last segregated regiment was disbanded. However, unlike the desegregation of the 1940s, LGBT soldiers are already inter-mixed with their heterosexual counterparts. There is no reshuffling of regiments or troops, just a halting of dishonorable discharges. Because you have other things on your plate, and that we’ll be getting the Matthew Shepard Act passed in October, I think a realistic goal to cut funding and sign your Order would be sometime in early November to make sure that all of the paperwork and such is in order.
At the same time you sign your Order you can hold a press conference proclaiming your support for the Military Readiness Enhancement Act and ask the House to reintroduce the bill in January of 2010 and ask the Senate to introduce a similar bill. Seeing as how you have the support of the majority of the population (the Gallup Poll released in June showed 69%) and the Pentagon (see the latest Joint Force Quarterly and pretty much every interview and sound bite for the past 10 months), this bill should pass very easily. What we need you to do is just press the House and Senate to quickly introduce these bills in 2010 with the goal of passing the bill by the end of March. With your approval ratings and coming off a fresh win with the Matthew Shepard Act , you should be able to use your bully pulpit to force this through quickly.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Ted Kennedy - longtime advocate of ENDA
ENDA should also require very little from you as it’s already been introduced in the House with 185 cosponsors and in the Senate with 40 cosponsors. You also have the comfort knowing that there are 29 states and D.C. that already have some sort of LGBT protections in place along with protections for all Federal employees (which you broadened to include gender identity). There’s also the fact that 87% of Fortune 500 companies have already implemented non-discrimination policies that include the LGBT community. You’ve got a lot of support for this, and all that’s left is a blessing from the White House.
So, during the press conference in which you announce your support for repealing DADT, you can also state your support for ENDA and urge both houses of Congress to quickly re-introduce their bills in 2010. Since they’ll be busy the first two months of the year working on DADT, we’ll set an expectation date of having them start on ENDA in April and have a vote by the end of June. We just need you to keep them on task, continue stating your support, and urging them to bring the bill to your desk by the deadline.
Defense of Marriage Act
Undeniably, DOMA is the big fish, and the one that will garner the most opposition and will be the greatest issue to tackle. We won’t expect anything final in 2010, but we do want you to urge Congress to introduce bills in the second half of the year in both Houses so that the language, especially the protections for religious institutions, can be worked on and revised to be ready for re-introduction in 2011 and to be passed at that time.
By the second half of the year you’ll be running on an LGBT high having finally passed three of the largest issues that affect our daily lives. Public opinion and Congress will also be high as most people will see progress and accomplishments as well as seeing that these laws are in no way detrimental to the nation. They will see that LGBT protections do not infringe upon their religious freedoms, their marriages, or their daily lives. As the fear and contempt against the LGBT community wanes, so will support for the Marriage Equality Bill. Though it won’t be an easy win in 2011, it will be a win.
Conclusion
The fact of the matter is that the passage of all of these bills is inevitable. However, your involvement will only help to speed the process. Action on your part, even if it’s just a couple of press conferences and having your people press Congress for results, will calm and reassure the LGBT community. It will also have the affect of giving us something to work towards. Instead of harassing you about inaction, we’ll be harassing our Senators and Representatives to get these bills through their Committee Hearings and to a successful vote by each deadline. We know that we have our part in this too, and we will not put you out there to fight for our rights alone. We will do our part to put these bills on your desk to sign into law.
From a political perspective, it would be a lot better if these bills passed due to your commitment and effort rather than passing in spite of your silence and inaction. There are political points to gain and successes to achieve, if only you will step forward and seize them. As aggressive as this plan is, it is entirely feasible. I ask you to accept it and to follow it.
Your Constituent,
Jacob Whipple | Organizer and Activist
P.S. I sent this to the White House, AmericaBLOG, the Associated Press, the Bilerico Project, Equality Across America, CNN, Equality Federation, the HRC, the Huffington Post, Join the Impact, John Stewart, NY Times, PFLAG, Time Magazine, Towleroad, and the Washington Post in hopes to spread the message, form consensus and ensure collaboration to make this timeline anticipated by the populace and approved by Obama. If you agree with the spirit of this request please post, blog, report, share, facebook and anything else you can think of to get this out there and demanded so that Obama will have to acknowledge it.
