A Gay Cabinet Secretary?

Most people probably know that the United States has never had an openly LGBTQ Cabinet Secretary. In fact, we can expand this even further: No head of any Cabinet-level agency (the EPA, for instance) has been openly gay.

Now, this surprised me at first, but it probably shouldn't. We've never had a gay Senator, nor a gay Governor (and no, Jim McGreevey doesn't count) at the time of their election. Neither of the Bushes nor Reagan were likely to appoint "a gay" to the Cabinet, and a looksie around Clinton's group shows a more diverse bunch, but not when it comes to sexual orientation. 

There was a good amount of hope, perhaps misplaced, that Obama would appoint an openly queer person to a Cabinet-level post. A few different names were thrown around, but most of my inclinations centered around Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, a solid progressive member of the US House and a Clinton supporter who campaigned fairly hard for Obama throughout September, when Wisconsin was still polling in the low single digits.

I saw Baldwin as an ideal fit for Secretary of Health and Human Services. She's been involved in health politics for a long time, far before her election to the US House in 1998. She's a prominent supporter of SCHIP, the Children's Health program that helps insure several million low-income children. What probably prevented her ascension to HHS was her support for a single-payer system, long-since disregarded as politically inexpedient by Obama. 

With news that Tom Daschle was to be named HHS Secretary, I figured gays would be shut out of the Cabinet. It seems I may have been wrong:

According to the Huffington Post, labor organizer Mary Beth Maxwell of California is a shortlisted candidate for US Secretary of Labor. Maxwell has strong support in the organized labor community, and is familiar with the ins and outs of the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA, which will be the most prominent labor legislation to face the House in over a decade, since the Family Medical Leave Act in the early 1990s. She also happens to be a lesbian. 

Now, I don't think that every minority/ethnic/racial/sexual/gender group should automatically expect a position in the Cabinet, but I do think 2008, particularly in a post-Prop 8 world, presents a unique opportunity for Obama to expand his coalition farther into the queer community. I believe pretty strongly that a President Hillary Clinton would have appointed an openly queer person to the Cabinet, considering her long-standing support from the community. It would be refreshing to see a progressive lesbian voice in the Obama Cabinet, particularly as Labor Secretary, to strengthen worker protections and provide yet another glass ceiling shattering moment for queer officials. 

This week

We're gonna find out whether or not Obama might appoint the first openly gay Cabinet member (my read: doubtful) and what the implications of a delayed reversal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" could mean for military readiness, especially in light of brewing tensions between India and Pakistan.

Keith Olberman on Prop 8

The term "ally" is thrown around in the queer community more than I think is warranted. An ally is someone who actively engages in the process of forwarding particular causes favorable to the LGBTQ movement (I'll use the word "queer" in most blog posts). It's not just someone who doesn't mind queer people, or who says s/he agrees with our goals. I think that a true ally is someone who will openly advocate for queer progress in their daily lives. It doesn't have to be often, it doesn't even have to be particularly visionary, but it has to be something more than, say, voting for a Democrat every four years or having gay friends. 

That being said, Keith Olberman showed on Countdown the other day exactly why he should be seen by the queer community as an ally. I don't agree with Keith all the time, but his special comment in the wake of Proposition 8's passage deserves particular praise. Watch it below: 

For some people, Keith's comments come too little, too late. For still others, Keith's vocal support of equal marriage rights will cause them to turn off MSNBC when his show starts. For me, Keith's speech here shows us exactly what the GRM (Gay Rights Movement, or the popular pro-queer organizations around the country) should take away from Proposition 8...

Honestly, most of us didn't think this would pass. We weren't catalyzed into a movement in the ways we have elsewhere, and though most of us gave a little money or donated a little time, we didn't work our asses off because, "Hey, it's California." Well maybe our loss here will make us take a little less for granted next time. Even those of us who don't agree with marriage rights being an end-goal of the movement should be able to see that winning fights like Prop 8 are crucial to long-term movement viability. 

Why I'm Here

I'm gay and I'm progressive, and I think the "gay rights movement," or whatever you want to call it, is fundamentally wrong in the way it approaches elections and public policy.

That's a pretty good start if you want to know where this blog is headed.