During the Nov. 7 Gabfest Emily said something like this "He (Obama) is everybody’s president".

Not true. For people like me, who are gay, he is not our president.

Not just because he holds the standard "separate but equal" notion on marriage that we get from his party.

But his election itself is a sign of Gay and Lesbians complete lack of political power even in the Democratic Party.

In part, Obama's victory depended on giving the GLBT community the stiff arm, particularly on prop 8 and its Arizona and Florida cousins. The bad news for gay people was that this strategy was a huge success. The new democratic majority was built by getting the votes of people who hate Gay and Lesbians. He did this not by changing minds but by accommodating their hate.

For years gays and lesbians have been working and funding Democratic Party’s campaigns. (I will skip the rant about the beating we took from the last Democrat in the White House) It would be interesting to see how many millions of dollars and hours buys “separate but equal” and a president who cares more about the votes of bigots in Ohio and Virginia then GLBT families in California.

On Wednesday, I woke up a second-class citizen in California. Everybody has been talking about it this last week. In the weeks and months to come people will be talking about my community’s second-class status in the Democratic Party. (This will be good for reporters; the first cracks in Demos new coalition are already there; they’re just not visible yet)

This is mostly a disaster of the gay community's own making. (Complacency, sheepish devotion the Democrats, lack of outreach… this is a long list) However our community’s climb back should start with this question:

“If Gays and Lesbians no longer have a seat at the Democratic Party’s table, why the hell are we still picking up the check?!”