Lorna Bracewell of The Political Whore is certainly moved by President Obama vocalizing support for the LGBT community, but something in the move has given her cause to pause. Why? Because the President seems more concerned with setting aside a month to honor the LGBT community and not as concerned about seeing that the individuals within that community have secured their civil rights—a move that isn't altogether surprising considering Obama seems to be less-than-down with the gays. And of course, Bracewell through the classic unchosen people—Black folks—into the mix to outline her point, which is actually fairly solid. She notes:
That’s not the way things happened for African Americans. They officially got their duly deserved month in 1986 when Congress passed Public Law 99-244. This law required the president to issue a proclamation recognizing Black History Month, which had been privately observed since 1915. Then President Ronald Reagan obliged with a document that reads quite similarly to Obama’s LGBT Pride Month proclamation.
All of this happened some 116 years after the passages of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the amendments to the federal Constitution that abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection of the laws, and enfranchised all males regardless of race, and 22 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a federal law that went a long way toward making the abstract legal rights guaranteed by those amendments substantively meaningful for African Americans.
Is this a case of putting the cart well before the horse or is the circumstance of the LGBT community altogether different?