Obama can try to get rid of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," rule and he can come out in support of Gay Marriage.

OR, he can carefully craft a scenario in which the Republican Party in it's present incarnation meets it's ruin and dies.

In the long run, it's better for the gays and it's better for the country if the Republican Party becomes a corpse. It's the difference between good tactics and good strategy. Good strategy isn't as immediately satisfying, but it goes much deeper than tactics and it aims to crush rather than simply change.

There is nothing this country can't accomplish and no goal out of reach in the absence of Republicans. And until they're truly dead, all change will be cosmetic, just waiting to be rolled back when they come back to power in all their arrogant awfulness.

@icemilkcoffee What's the economic situation got to do with it? Human rights don't cost anything.

@verycold Your argument about what you think is best for children is unsubstantiated, but irrelevant as an argument against gay marriage anyway. Homosexuals are allowed to be parents even without getting married. Beyond that, I struggle to follow your argument. You're saying the divorce rate is already high so.... Well, I guess if more people are allowed to get married, the number of divorces, if not the rate, will probably increase, but why should that mean homosexuals, specifically, are denied the right to marry? Why not some other group like, I dunno, people who like to fish, porn stars, Mormons (I'm kind of for that one – even if it wouldn't bring the divorce rate down ;)) or any other fairly random grouping? Are you suggesting homosexuals are more likely to get divorced?

Oh, not that brief the. Well I'll stop there.

That's a false alternative. How is this purported destruction of the Republican party supposed to take place? Yes, they are awful, but the continuing unjustice of gay people being second class citizens before the law cannot be justified by some pie-in-the-sky idea that Obama will be able to destroy the Republican party.

Did it occur to you that if gays had full equality before the law that maybe one of the biggest fundraising tools these republicans have would be pulled from under them? They've raised huge money on the backs of anti-gay bigotry. If gay rights were no longer an issue, then there'd be one less large chunk of money going to support the republicans.

@diane whats-her-face

It seems clear from what you posted about the Duke case you're talking about (assuming you're telling the truth, something I'm not going to bet on), that you think there's something wrong with gay people adopting children. You use a single case, that hasn't even been litigated as a reason for that, while you obviously have ignored the thousands of kids killed by their insane straight parents. No one is advocating the removal of children from straight families, and your specious insinuation that gay people are somehow unfit to be parents is not borne out by actual evidence. People are unfit parents regardless of orientation, but percentage-wise (and simply numerically), the majority now that harm their children is straight people. If you want anecdotal evidence of people unfit to be parents, I'd say a case could be made that fanatically religious people are more likely to be unfit parents (witness the number of them that have killed their children for religious reasons).

--Ron

From the first page of letters for this article.

Very good.

Hard fact. GLBT folks are between 10 and 20 percent of the population. You folks don't carry a whole lot of votes, percentage-wise.

There are also some other pressing needs facing 100% of our population. Healthcare, our economy, global warming.

Your needs and rights are 100 percent legitimate. But your demographic is rather small. Expecting a universal leader like Obama to sacrifice 100 percent goals for minority rights (and, please remind me what Obama has done specifically for African Americans in his first 180 days?) is an exhibition of tunnel vision.

He's on your side. But don't expect him to throw away everything else in order to please you first.

You're not that important in the larger scheme of things. Neither am I, for that matter. But I don't expect Obama to concentrate on me.

They expect to be given their due.

I have been talking about this for about a year now and it should not come to any LGBT people that Obama wants us for our vote and that is *ALL*.

He has proven this over and over I do not understand why the LGBT people in the U.S. even believe his repeated promises (broken time and time again).

The first example was that he attended a church that had an anti gay minister and Obama just sat there and let him spew his hatred. That tells us that he either believes in it or that he thinks that the guy might be partially correct. The fact that he did not resign from a hate spewing church until he was pressured to says a *LOT* about Obama and how he views us.

Is he better than any Republican, yes but not by much. At least with a Republican you can count on his bias against gay people. With Obama he still has people believing his song and dance and people actually believing it. Of course some people still liked Bill Clinton after he sold us down the road.

When and *IF* Obama produces solid progress he will have to start earning respect all over again.

In Illinois here we have a appointed Senator and he was always gay friendly and he participated in the Pride march. Now he is spouting that marriage is only for procreation.

Some gay friendly politician he is (Roland Burris is the blankity blank guys name).

No less than a month ago Mayor Daley appointed a hate spewing minister to the city council as an alderman. Daley is supposed to be gay friendly well after that trick he lost a bit of the LGBT vote in Chicago.