The bill currently has 150 co-sponsors. (For those who argue that ‘blacks are against us,’ while I didn’t search the list against the entire Black Caucus, the black co-sponsorship is very high — including my own Congressperson, Yvette Clarke who may have the safest seat in the House, and there are Hispanic and Asian Democrats as well.)

The complete list of co-sponsors is here and I’d like to ask how many of you who are constituents of these Congresspeople have bothered to write, phone, or e-mail them, simply thanking them and encouraging them?

But the problem is in the Senate, as i wrote above. May I suggest that those of us who live in states with dubious Democratic senators invest in reasonably large op-ed ads in the papers that cover their states, reminding them of the proportion of the gay vote they received — if this is available through exit polls — and demanding not that they ‘vote for us’ but that they refuse support to a Republican filibuster designed to keep the bill from coming to the floor. “A vote against cloture is a vote against the bill.” (And this tactic and slogan should be used in other non-gay related matters as well. No one dmands Democrats vote in lockstep, but they have no right to duck out on the bills by supporting Republican filibusters.)

That 60 votes include Ted Kennedy, who has been reported to be unlikely to be able to cast a vote again — and you have to be physically present on the floor to vote, no ‘proxies’ allowed.

It includes Robert Byrd, 91, ailing, and never pro-gay.

(And note that, were Kennedy to leave the Senate, Massachusetts law require a vacany until election, a minimum of three months. And Byrd would be replaced by a Republican Gubernatorial appointee.)

It includes Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, two extremely conservative democrats who have opposed gay right repeatedly — and if the strong gay community in New Orleans could influence her, there is no substantial visible gay community in Nebraska that could counteract the conservatism of the state.

It includes Bob Casey, who believes employers should be permitted — but not mandated — to give benefits to same sex couples and supports civil unions.

It includes “Blagojevich’s Legacy” Roland Burris, and Ted Kaufman, with no recorded position I know of on gay rights (though my gut puts him on our side), and Jon Tester, who has spoken against gay marriage.

It also includes Joe Lieberman, unpredictable at best, who has been all over the map on our issues — and almost everything else — and Jim Webb, whose ‘progressivism’ is mostly his anti-war stance, not his position on social issues.

So those who argue that ‘it would be easy for Obama to pass gay-positive legislation if he really wanted to’ might do some counting. And they might remember how far we are from a Parliamentary system, and how any elected Democrat is free to ‘take his or her own path’ on anything.

We have to keep pressing Obama, publicly — and I’m sure he welcomes the fact of the pressure. More we have to press the doubtful and slow mebers of Congress, reminding them how much of their majority was provided by us. But we won’t be effective if our statements are Aravosian paranoia, if we scorn every positive move he makes in our direction, if we start out assuming ‘he is a worse enemy to our community than Bush’ if we assume his ‘caution’ is ‘unconcern’ about our community — at best — instead of seeing it comes from wanting to do something that works and will last.

It’s easy to make a strong public push for a bill that you know won’t pass and gain credit with a community. (The Republicans did that with anti-abortion measures and Pro-Life Amendments, and anti-Flag Burning Amendments for years.) Getting something actually passed — and not ‘watered down’ during passage — is a lot harder.

The problem with so many people who are passionate advocates, is the old chip on the shoulder.Its quite easy to take an “either you’re with us or against us” attitude and expect an all or nothing victory. That same George Bush approach is not some patented conservative attitude nor a liberal attitude, its a human attitude.
That viewpoint all too often colors how people receive information, which to me explains why someone might react in such a manner.