Don't Mess With Camden, NJ

Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1980s, the city was continuing through its hard times. Population decreased, jobs fled, violence and crime surged, West Philadelphia burned as the MOVE situation raged out of control.

But the city had its immovable institutions, one of which remained Campbell's Soup Company, across the river in the roughest town in Jersey -- Camden.

From its headquarters right off the Ben Franklin Bridge across from Center City, Campbell's produces more soup than any other company. It fills lunchboxes and stomachs of everyone from the poorest inner city kids to the wealthiest suburbanites. It understands the diversity of its customer base -- possibly one of the most diverse in the world.

Recently, the company made the decision to advertise its product to gay families in The Advocate. The American Family Association went ballistic, but the company held its ground with the sort of gumption one would expect from a Philly-area institution:

"Our position on this is pretty straightforward," said company rep Anthony Sanzio. "Inclusion and diversity play an important role in our business, and that fact is reflected in our marketing plan. For more than a century, people from all walks for life have enjoyed Campbell's products, and we will continue to try to communicate in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them."

He added: "Our plans for the Swanson brand include additional placements in The Advocate."

Smackdown!

AFA has met its rhetorical match, not from a political rival, but in the plucky soup cannery from Camden, NJ.

If only politicians could have that sort of backbone!

Democrats Lied; Equality Died

Just days after the Democratic president-elect threw the LGBTQ community under the bus by inviting one of the nation's most pernicious homophobes to give an invocation at his inauguration, the Democratic Party decided to put the bus into reverse and run over the community yet again, this time on military service.

Democrats from Pelosi down to the average Daily Kos poster swore, up and down, that if gay people helped Obama get elected, anti-gay laws would fall and gay people would be treated as equal Americans by the Feds for the first time.

They told us that if Democrats got majority control in the New York statehouse, that a gay marriage bill would be introduced and passed in 2009.

And they told us that Democrats would repeal the anti-gay Don't Ask, Don't Tell statute during the first term of Congress in an Obama presidency.

Obama hasn't even assumed the presidency, and already, the Democrats have broken the first two promises -- Rick Warren's elevation to prominence in the Obama administration undermined Obama's claim to stand for real dignity for LGBT people; and New York's Democratic Party backed out of its marriage equality commitment literally 48 hours after they received their majority.

Now, Democrats have announced that the last of their campaign promises to the LGBT community must, "sadly," be abandoned as well. Queerty reports:

Key Democrats — even openly gay lawmakers — are quietly conceding to letting another two years go by before trying to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the controversial 1993 law banning openly gay people from serving in the military.

And predictably, the excuse being used for this latest bit of electoral fraud by Democrats is exactly the same as before:

Most fear that moving too quickly on such a divisive issue could backfire, and most would rather tread lightly, at least in the early months of President-elect Barack Obama's administration.

"Change we can believe in?" Nope. More of the same.

One could literally have pulled a similar quote and paragraph from an article circa 1996.

If Democrats are too fearful to repeal an anti-gay statute that is opposed by almost three quarters of Americans, then they are completely useless.

No attacks on Republicans, attacks on Libertarians, dithering, excuses, or convoluted and condescending lectures on "strategy" can change this fact: The Democrats bald-facedly lied to the LGBTQ community in this election.

They had no intention of accomplishing any of the policies they promised. They knew, beforehand, that the fight would be "too hard." Yet they figured a couple of cheap promises would land them millions of votes and $100 million plus dollars in campaign contributions. Sadly, they were right.

If gay people continue to provide unwavering and "patient" support to this corrupt and mendacious political party, we will be reading lectures from queer Democrat partisans in 2028 about how "patience is needed" to repeal DADT.

It's time that the LGBT community got tough on the Democrats. No money, no votes, no volunteer time, and no quarter should be given to that party until it makes good on its 16-year uninterrupted string of broken campaign promises to LGBTQ Americans.

Real Dignity Before False Unity

Much has been made of Barack Obama's invitation of anti-gay Brokeback... um, I mean SADDLEback Church pastor Rick Warren to deliver a convocation at Obama's inauguration.

Obama is free to invite who he pleases, and those who are displeased with his choice are free to criticize it. We at Outright take no pleasure in seeing that our well-rooted concern that the Obama Administration would throw LGBTQ Americans under the bus will be commencing literally from the first hour of his administration.

There has been much debate over the situation, some valid and some merely rhetorical. Comparisons to racist pastors have been made -- and they have some validity. If Obama is seeking to "unite" the country, including all bigots fearful of his administration, then the most magnanimous step he could take would be to invite some racist leaders, such as David Duke or Louis Farrakhan, to the event as speakers.

That would doubtlessly invite controversy. African Americans and supporters of equal treatment under the law would doubtlessly disapprove across all three national political parties and independents alike. But such a move, given Obama's status as America's first African American president, would have validity and meaning, and would represent true courage in underscoring his commitment to "dialogue with all." It would represent true sacrifice on the part of the president-elect.

Throwing gay people to the wolves is far less "courageous," and resembles something more akin to what Bill Clinton would have done. It's easy for a powerful heterosexual man to demand sacrifice from LGBTQ people who have already lost so much -- their family rights in the largest state in the country, their jobs in the military, and even their physical safety in brutal and traumatizing assaults like the recent gang rape of a gay woman in San Francisco. LGBTQ people have "sacrificed" far too much, and for this powerful man to demand further sacrifice from them when he has sacrificed literally nothing is staggering to behold.

The reality? Barack Obama's shameless pandering to homophobia in his inauguration is an inexcusable demand that gay Americans exchange their dignity as individuals for a phony feel-good "unity" around a vision of America where LGBT Americans are on the outside looking in. This is NOT "change we can believe in" -- it is rather "more of the same."

With this in mind, I'd like to turn more of my attention to the wheedling and excuse-making by LGBT Obama partisans like Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan and pop singer Melissa Etheridge.

Etheridge opines:

Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.

Maybe if they get to know us, they wont fear us.

Sullivan adds that:

The journey that Melissa Etheridge has taken is my own... we are the ones we have been waiting for.

While it's sad (if not nauseating) to watch these two grown people fawn over their hero selling them (and us) down the river again, I'm reminded of something my mother taught me many years ago.

If you have to "prove" you're a good person, the person demanding that proof isn't.

Rather than go down this path of "reaching out" to bigots who had, until just a couple of days ago, posted lists of people who may not join their church (including "homosexuals")... Rather than fawn over Obama's Clintonian ways... Rather than spit out his trite one-liners... we have a real choice this holiday season.

Let us do what we have always done and contribute to our communities in the ways we always have -- without an agenda of "proving" ourselves "worthy" of the admiration of bigots. Let us stand up and refuse to be thrown under the bus along with Obama's late grandmother, Obama's pastor, Obama's Chicago mentor, and every other individual he's sacrificed in his unrelenting thirst for power.

Rather than take yet another for "the team" (which never really seeks to include LGBTQ people as out and equal partners), let's just tell the truth: Obama's demand for our reticence, and his partisans' glorifying of Warren's ideology as an opportunity for "dialogue" is an insulting, condescending and inexcusable embrace of homophobia. And further, let us deliver a message to both Obama and his bigoted base: we seek unity as Americans and as vigorous participants in a free society, but we shall never do so at the cost of our own dignity.

Those who demand otherwise seek power for themselves, not promise for America, and they should be held to account. So long as such attitudes enjoy a position of prominence in strategies of the American president, this country's promise shall remain elusive.