President Obama earned the skepticism that the LGBT community now has for him. In his first State of the Union Address he’s officially promised he’ll to move to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell this year.

It’s not that we don’t appreciate that gesture, Mr. Obama. But we’ll believe it when we see it.

Barack Obama started his presidency amidst reluctant support from many queer people who would rather have had Hillary Clinton for President. It’s one thing to vote for a progressive Democrat who – for all his hesitancy on gay rights – at the very least promises not to refer to you as a sign of a pending apocalypse the way the other party does. It’s another thing to vote for a progressive Democrat who just knocked the perfect pro-Gay Democrat out of the running – the other candidate who, by her very election, would have challenged the gender roles and sexual repression that make America so deeply resist LGBT people.

Since I was an Obama supporter from the beginning – and knew he backed gay marriage personally, despite his formal political position – I was less willing to voice doubts, and turned my frustration toward people who were saying the new presidency was a failure within its first month. They were the same people who had repeatedly reminded me before the election that Obama wasn’t going to solve everything, wasn’t our savior and was politically inexperienced. It was clear that a number of them were more conservative on healthcare or military issues than I am, eager to point out Obama is “too liberal” – a label that is ironically granted him by the Right for his stance on social issues like LGBT rights.

If that’s how you always felt about him, I asked those critics, why the hell are you acting so dismayed now?

But as 2009 rolled on, we gradually came to see things similarly. “Wait till healthcare is finished,” was my line in the beginning, “then the White House will move on to other issues like DADT.” Few predicted what an epic fail would emerge from that very process, now one year later with our elected Democrats still apparently unable to figure out whether the Democratic party stands for the disadvantaged or for CEOs.

Barack Obama is rhetorically, and maybe even personally, very progressive on LGBT rights compared to all former presidents and most voting Americans. That is why the last year has been an especially bitter pill to swallow – the president didn’t do anything big for gay rights, and we saw his political capital melt away with no change to our experience, no progress on our issues and no emotion from the President to back up his promise to be our “fierce advocate,” as he once put it.

Both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had sky-high ratings descend to tepid scores just below 50 at this point in their presidencies – so President Obama can’t say he couldn’t have seen these troubled times coming. You lose your political capital fast when the unemployment is almost 10 percent.

I think that Barack Obama’s experience as a black American informs him that when you’re bargaining somebody else’s equality away or asking them to compromise it – something that black Americans faced ad nauseam through a generation of Democratic Party leaders during the Civil Rights era – there’s nothing you can really say to make it OK. Excuses come across as false appeasement, or as downright offensive. So Barack Obama has made no serious attempt to excuse his hesitancy on LGBT issues; when confronted, he consistently claims I’ll make it up to you later, and you’ll know me differently by the end of this presidency, as he fully recognizes that right now he, like all straight people in power, is still in grave debt to LGBT citizens. The president’s refusal to pander comes across as uncaring, but I think that’s because he knows that spending time to convince us that things are good would be particularly callow and inappropriate.

I don’t necessarily see the breakdown through the lens of Barack Obama abandoning gay people; after all, his inaction has extended beyond LGBT issues and virtually all progressives are frustrated right now.

I see this through the lens of Barack Obama letting the wrong people set his agenda, which has caused him to be ineffective across the board. He campaigned on change, but he also portrayed himself to be an incrementalist, and as a man who is conciliatory to his peers and foes. His reputation is to hear out every person in the room, sucking the ideas out of them even if they’re reluctant to speak, and only after finding a way to synthesize all the input will he make a cautious and prudent decision.

He appointed a moderate-to-conservative team of advisers: Geither was picked off Wall Street, Salazar was a Blue Dog Democrat. Most poignant to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is a Republican appointed by President Bush and Obama kept him on. That’s a great way for a teacher or a judge to work, respecting and hearing out all opinions, and a stark contrast from Bush, who enraged Americans with his arrogance and refusal to listen that ran the country off a cliff. But Obama’s approach doesn’t work for issues that always have naysayers – and when it comes to social justice, naysayers are all there is.

The President has repeatedly said he is waiting for Congress to bring up legislation resolving Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. His biggest mistake, then is thinking that Congress, of all institutions, is one he can sit back and listen to. Congress full of people who are happy in their security and privilege. Congress full of people who tested the political winds before deciding which party to team up with on their first run at office. Congress full of those who crave elite status, who loved standing out in their colleges and home towns but are now frustrated to find themselves in a body of equals – while the spotlight in Congress rewards obstinacy, not cooperation.

Congress full of people who are obsessed with fickle polls in a year that nobody can agree why things have gone so horribly wrong.

So now our government has collectively pissed away an entire year of American history, and pissed away a year of enormous Democratic majorities, with nothing substantial to speak of. We knew it would take a bigger-than-average Democratic majority in Congress to make moves against discrimination, but now it is clear it takes more than a majority to do anything when there’s a “D” before your name.

During this week’s State of the Union Address, President Obama announced to the whole nation that Congress and military leaders will work together to find ways to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 2010. I believe that the president really wants to see this happen, but I’m not happy with the way he framed it, again turning to others to take the charge. He framed entirely too many steps that need to happen to get the ball rolling, and steps by institutions that have every reason to resist, which is why, perhaps, Washington Post editor and MSNBC commentator Eugene Robinson has already said taht an unnamed White House staffer told him DADT probably won’t be repealed this year.

Congress will never lead the charge on gay rights; by its nature it lags behind the public when it comes to change like this. Rural conservative voters are heavily over-represented in the Senate, which gives blood-red Wyoming the same number of votes as California. The average age of a U.S. Representative is 55, a Senator 60, both numbers well above the age of the voters who typically support same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, urban votes – where the most pro-gay people live – are taken for granted by Democrats whose elections depend on swings in the suburbs. Even a generous portion of even “liberals” in blue states are still homophobic – look at Maine for an example; we know that discrimination can still happen even among people who shop at Wild Oats and drive compact cars, so lets not pretend that we can trust the Senator just because there’s a big Pride fest in his hometown.

The world is full of people we can’t trust, so I’m looking for more from this president. I’m looking for Obama to put his foot down, not ask for cooperation but instead demand that this country be better than what homophobic generals and recalcitrant legislators and a politically-tentative White House staff would have it be.

I’m looking for a little emotion, Mr. President.

© 2010, Matt P.. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com