Earlier this evening, 250 or so leaders of the LGBT movement had the opportunity to speak with President Obama about his administration's lack of movement of several issues of important to LGBT people. this is one of the reports coming out of the meeting, which was held in the East Room, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
Obama apparently mollified the attending leaders, who cheered his encouraging words: "I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that. It's not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago."
But he went ahead and asked for patience anyway. Even though for people like Lt. Daniel Choi and Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, it's almost already too late.
Soon, he tells us. Soon we will get what the Constitution guarantees us. Wait just a little while longer. He wants, he says, to make sure that change (as he put it when speaking of overturning DADT) "is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term."
I'll give him some more room. After all, Ronald Reagan wouldn't even say the word "gay," and today Obama asked some of us to stop by for cocktails.
I just want to know, how long is soon?
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