Is Obama on the “Down Low” with the LGBTQ Community? – Inclusion

Obama has “barack the vote” by getting disinterested and disenfranchised Americans involved in his campaign for the presidential bid. His promise to cease partisan politics and the old beltway boys’ bickering has not only raised the hope of the American public, it has also brought out untold numbers of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans to cast our vote for him. And with Obama’s win of the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina last month, his inspiring victory speech, “Yes, we can change,” proved that not only can he reach across this nation’s dividing lines, but we, as Americans, can too:

“This election is about the past vs. the future. It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity…

Don’t tell me we can’t change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future.”

With news outlets reporting that in 2004 Obama asked to not have his picture taken with San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom, because of the Mayor’s support of same sex marriage, we must ask ourselves this question about Obama , as Obama challenges us – can he change?