August 4, 1961, Barack Hussein Obama II is the best Presidential pal a gay person could ever have. He is the twice elected 44th President of the USA, the first Hawaiian to hold the office. He is smart & handsome with a fierce & beautiful wife, 2 teenage girls & 2 cute dogs. They live in a pretty white house in hip, happening DC.
Before becoming the Leader Of The Free World, Obama was a pot smoking college student at Columbia University, a graduate of Harvard Law School where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review, a community organizer, & a professor of Constitutional Law at University Of Chicago.
In 2 elections, he aggressively sought campaign donations from the LGBT citizens of our country & he received the large majority of gay people’s votes in 2008 & 2012. LGBT people makeup at least 10% of the electorate & I am certain that no less than 51% of people in the USA have a sibling, parent, cousin, friend, neighbor or co-worker that is gay. What today’s politicians say about LGBT Americans matters & Obama has been the gay friendliest President in history, in most ways, the only gay friendly one. Since his first days in office, Obama has showed his opponents that he is tight with the LGBTs, appointing more gays as judges, foreign ambassadors & other top government jobs than anyone before him.
Obama:
“Every single American, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender — every single American deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our society. It’s a pretty simple proposition.”
Here are a just a few of the ways he has contributed to gay lives:
He worked towards & protected the Rights of LGBT Persons around the world. Just this past week, POTUS gave a talking to his fellow Kenyan, President Uhuru Kenyatta, about Kenya’s gay rights record. Under that country’s law, sex between men is illegal & punishable with 14 years imprisonment. Kenyan leaders had encouraged Obama not to discuss gay rights on his first trip to the country.
“When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode,& bad things happen.”
Obama has worked at Preventing Bullying Against LGBT Students: the Prez, Vice President Joseph Biden, & assorted officials in their White House recorded Dan Savage’s It Gets Better videos that take on the issues of bullying & suicide among LGBT youth.
The Administration has worked to ensure LGBT Equality in Housing & Crime Prevention, helping gay Americans secure home loans & ensuring Equality for LGBT Federal Government Employees.
Against terrible odds, Obama has actively addressed Health Care Disparities with The Affordable Care Act, bringing hope & healing to the hurting, funding communities for programs that address tobacco control, obesity prevention, HIV-related health disparities, better nutrition & physical activity for all people, along with expanding access to health coverage. The Affordable Care Act makes sure that all Americans have secure, stable, & affordable insurance. His administration developed & implemented a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, funding The Centers For Disease Control & Prevention with $185 million in grants for HIV prevention for transgendered people & gay & bi men of color.
Obama signed historic Hate Crimes Legislation, ended legal defense of the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, & championed Marriage Equality, each year he has written & posted a proclamation making June Gay Pride & History Month.
Obama is the first President to use the term Gay in any Inaugural Address, declaring the movement for equality to be part of the pantheon of USA’s Civil Rights struggles:
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers & sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. For if we are truly created equal then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.”
POTUS also made an additional reference in the speech about Gay Equality. He placed The Stonewall Riots as a signature event in the civil rights movement, putting the 1969 event in the ranking with historical turning points in the battles for Women’s & Racial Equality:
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths- that all of us are created equal- is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls & Selma & Stonewall.”
Obama is also one cool cat. With an easy-going demeanor & an informal way of interacting with others, some tight-asses & the haters claim that he can be inappropriate, even offensive. But for most of us, we appreciate his level head, sly candor & bracing honesty.
The Prez is a dynamic, inspiring speaker with smart humor, pop culture references, crack comedic timing & incredible intellect. It will be interesting to see what Obama will do after January 2017. I think he should have a late night talk show on Bravo where he & guests hang out in a re-creation of the Oval Office outfitted with a DJ Station, Ms. Pacman, & craft beer on tap, with everyone belting out Al Green tunes & gossiping about RuPaul’s Drag Race. I could be his sidekick/announcer & he would let me call him Barry.
Tiny footnote: I am alive today to compose this #BornThisDay column because of The Affordable Care Act, as if I didn’t love Obama enough.
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