I was too young to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 election, but as a teenager living in Tulsa, I remember how exciting it was to have a presidential contender speak inclusively about queer people. That had never happened before—and the hair on my arms stood up when he mentioned us in his speech to the 1992 Democratic Convention:
“It is time to heal America. And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other. All of us—we need each other. We don't have a person to waste. And yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us. Them. Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays. We've gotten to where we've nearly "them"ed ourselves to death. Them and them and them. But this is America. There is no them; there's only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.”
It wasn’t perfect, but the next eight years felt more inclusionary than at any time in history. Openly gay staff served in the White House and we had the first president to officially declare June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”.
We had all gotten so comfortable that when the 2000 election came around many couldn’t fathom a reversal of the gains we had made. Dire warnings of what a Bush Administration would mean were often met with rolled eyes and accusations of “hyperbole”. It’s estimated that one in four LGBTers voted for Bush in the 2000 election.
It’s almost only in the movies that people stop to look at the big picture and ask “MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE?” And Bush and the GOP gave that
The tone in Washington changed overnight. Friendly sounding anti-gay code words like “family values” were trumpeted about as a smokescreen for bigotry. Anti-gay political appointees filled key positions and busily worked to purge the government of LGBT people. A well known example is the scandal surrounding Department of Justice employee Monica Goodling.
On July 28, 2008 a Justice Department report concluded that Goodling had violated federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants, employees and contractors who weren't Republican or conservative loyalists. One group that was targeted even if they were loyal conservatives were LGBT individuals like Leslie Hagen, a female prosecutor in Washington who despite being a GOP loyalist was dismissed after word got to Goodling that she was a lesbian.
As one Republican source told NPR at the time, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."
Although the first three years of Bush’s term were hard on us, I argue the lowest point for queer people in recent history was in 2004. Bush, Rove and the Republicans had long used us as a wedge issue, but in their efforts to defeat rival John Kerry they kicked it up a notch by putting constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriage on state ballots across the nation, beginning with Missouri. It passed by an overwhelming margin that August and was followed by similar measures in numerous states that November.
After the elections, after we were successfully maligned, marginalized and vilified in order to keep Republicans in power, the United Church of Christ decided to run a commercial telling queer people that we were welcome at their church. No major network would agree to run the commercial out of fear of offending the Bush Administration. To this day that infuriates me, and to this day I believe heads should roll for that decision. It’s during times of hardship that you know who your friends are, and at the end of 2004 not even the network that brought us Will & Grace was standing with our people. We were on the cold side of the wedge.
In a nation that burns the past daily, you’ll likely be called “out of touch” for talking about something that happened a few years back, especially if you’re making an argument someone doesn’t want to hear. But 2004 wasn’t that long ago and the current leading GOP contenders would love to take us back to that dark year. They’ve vowed to reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, nullify same sex marriages, limit adoption rights, etc.
The words of President Clinton’s 1992 speech are as relevant today as they were 20 years ago. Beginning with Nixon’s Southern Strategy through the marginalization of our people, and now to the disparaging of immigrants and the unemployed the GOP has “them”ed us to death. Take no comfort when they take the focus off of our community for a season. Our time will come around again.
I’ll take no victory for granted and will consider no right to be set in stone. I won’t sit out an election to “send a message” and I won’t fall for the wedge issues used against other Americans.
Should another 25-30% of us vote to turn our nation over to the Republicans this fall, to the very people who openly vow to dismantle our rights, I will grieve as I watch livelihoods being lost, military careers being scrapped and families being legally dissolved.
I’ll shake my head thinking about those voters and will say to myself, “My God. What have they done?”
BY: CHRIS ANDOE – VITAL VOICE WEST
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