Michelangelo Signorile has a piece in the August issue of The Advocate that, due to publication schedules is missing some timely developments, but — as he wrote on Twitter: “[T]he argument still applies . . . . It’s about what happened, and what needs to.”
Though he admitted it was hard to explain on Twitter, I think I get his point. Though his commentary is about a point in time, it easily applies more broadly. As he writes:
But the big question remains: How far will HRC go in keeping the pressure on the president, and did the cover the group provided early on give the administration the sense that the gay movement would just lie down and get trampled?
It’s true the many of us were surprised by the strength of the language coming from HRC President Joe Solomonese following the filing of the Smelt DOMA brief last month.
Signorile then goes through several interpretations of the what and why of Smelt — which this blog and many others have gone through many, many times — but reaches the ultimate conclusion that the Administration was showing itself to be “tone-deaf” to our concerns and that “[t]here are ways to make a constituency feel better about your intentions, even as you drag your feet for political reasons. Obama hasn’t done even that.”
It’s true, and though I’m not sure I place as much blame at the feet of HRC as Signorile does, it’s clear that the D.C. dome of politics does cause there oftentimes to be a completely different perception of an action in D.C. than outside the Beltway.
And on that point, I think Signorile is right in that the HRC/A-list gays really didn’t understand the depth of the activist/blogger uproar. Sure, there are a couple, like Stampp Corbin, who bridge both — but most folks fit into one camp or the other. Even the more pro-Obama bloggers like me have been critical of Obama’s inaction on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the slowness of movement in ensuring that his Justice Department is, within the scope of their duties, accurately reflecting Administration policy.
The point is that regardless of who or what it is, D.C. institutions oppose change, need pushed into making changes and move slowly when change happens. (Look at health care reform for one of a zillion examples.) From President Obama to agency heads to members of Congress to advocacy organizations like HRC, Signorile is right that everyone needs to be pushed to keep up the pace on movement for the changes we want and deserve.
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, is the senior political writer at Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found