Letters to President-elect Obama: Joe Solmonese
Open letters from 26 gay men and lesbians.
From The Advocate December 16, 2008
Letters to President-elect Obama: Joe Solmonese
http://www.advocate.com/issue_story_ektid66560.aspDear President-elect Obama,
Your election as president represents the most profound sense of hope and promise that our community has experienced in decades. For LGBT Americans, the years of Congress and an administration working against us -- literally working to enshrine discrimination into the Constitution -- have come to a close. Our years in the wilderness are over -- and this really is a change we can believe in.
On many occasions throughout this campaign you took the opportunity to directly confront homophobia before religious leaders, and you openly condemned the role that stigma based on sexual orientation continues to play in fueling the devastating spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly within minority communities. You even took that message to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. King once stood and called for equality, and declared, "We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them."
