photo credit: laviddichterman

impassioned blog piece on gay rights underlines how important it is to look at things objectively. There is a sense that when Obama came in everyone could take a back seat as there was a leader in place, but remebering that his most-likened to figure, Kennedy would not have been the great liberal without a congress and beneath that the fierce demand for equality and social reform that boiled over in the 60s. Obama will be no different.

I lived through eight years of the Clintons and then eight years of Bush. Through it all, gay people were treated at the federal level like embarrassments or impediments. With Clinton, we were the means to raise money. With Bush, we were the means to leverage votes by exploiting bigotry. Obama seemed in the campaign to promise something else.

Naturally as he mentions Obama has had more on his plate than few Presidents have had to tackle, a global recession, two wards Climate Change but nevertheless when you read Sullivan’s articles on gay rights in America it brings home the importance of fighting for civil rights on a new front.