Sometimes words fail. I just spoke to Frank last week. He called frequently on Fridays with comments (and polite criticisms) of the week’s paper. He was upset last week because his closest Blade newspaper box had the previous week’s issue inside. I asked him to finally let us comp him a subscription. He reluctantly agreed and we only got one issue out to him before this awful news. Frank helped to found the Blade and never missed an issue. Those of us who now write for the gay press without pseudonyms, or who serve openly in the U.S. military, or who legally marry a same-sex partner in D.C., do so in large part because of Frank’s pioneering and fearless work. Gay is, indeed, good. —Kevin Naff, editor, Washington Blade

I only hope that Frank passed with the same smile on his face that he had at the recent HRC dinner when being wheeled around by a beautiful young man. Frank Kameny will go down in the history books as a fighter for the civil and human rights of the LGBT community. He will be remembered for his courageous stands for justice and his fight for his own rights. I assume that on his tombstone will be the words ‘Gay is Good,’ an expression that he always wanted to be remembered for.

Not many people get the honors that they deserve while still able to enjoy them. But Frank was fortunate to see his life’s work honored in many ways. He saw one of his greatest fights, the right of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, come to fruition. He was honored by President Obama and a new generation that benefitted from his struggle to live openly the life that he was born to live.

We have lost an icon and a hero. May he rest in peace knowing he lived a life that made a difference.  —Peter Rosenstein, columnist and longtime LGBT rights advocate

Frank was a force of nature. He was a man of high intelligence, endless nerve, and a steel spine. When his own government fired him for being gay in the late 1950s, he was filled with patriotic indignation, outraged that a country that he had defended in front-line combat in World War II would treat him so unjustly. He treated his firing as an act of war, and (as he has said countless times since) he was not in the habit of losing his wars. Unlike most other “homophile” activists at the time, Frank used his own name and refused to cower in fear. He did not think there was the slightest thing wrong with him. He appealed his case to the Supreme Court and wrote his own brief. His entire strategy was based on seizing the moral and intellectual high ground, specifically invoking America’s founding principles and demanding for gay people the birthright of any other American citizen. He did this at a time when he had no backup, no army of activists and fundraisers behind him. He took on the U.S. Civil Service Commission and the Department of Defense by himself, on his own wits and native courage. —Rick Rosendall, vice president, Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance

Words like “champion” and “pioneer” are too frequently bandied about. But both apply to Dr. Frank Kameny. At a time when gays were shunned and vilified, Frank had the vision, and the chutzpah, to press for gay rights as civil rights. He took a courageous stand for equality by directly engaging with the legal system and fighting his way up to the Supreme Court. As importantly, he played a vital part in steadily building a social movement for gay pride that would first help to change the way we think about ourselves and then change the way others think about us. We, all of us, gay and straight, are thus in his debt. —Leslie Calman, executive director, Mautner Project

“Dr. Frank Kameny was more than a pioneer. He was definitely that. But he was also a trailblazer, a mentor, an inspiration — a hero. The list of platitudes to describe the father of the modern gay rights movement is endless. In 1957, Frank was fired as a federal government worker because he was gay. That was then. We, as gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people all owe a debt of gratitude to the lifetime of work Frank has done on our behalf. May we now stand on his shoulders and continue the fight for equality.  Let’s make Frank proud!” —Robert Turner, president, D.C. Log Cabin Republicans

“Frank Kameny was a champion of equal rights, a founding father of the Pride movement, and a hero to so many of us in the LGBT community. Dr. Kameny never ran from who he was and in so doing empowered millions to be open with the world about who they are. While I am deeply saddened by his passing, I am grateful for the fearless and brave life that he led. Frank Kameny changed minds and opened hearts to acceptance and tolerance in Washington, D.C. and all over the world.” —D.C. Council member David Catania

The day before Frank passed away I stumbled on a picture of him in a Christopher Street Magazine from 1976. He is quoted as saying: “We all know that Gay is Good. It’s up to us to get out there and make it better — much better.” Frank did make the world better for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. I am so pleased we had the opportunity to honor him at the DC Fall Reception last month. He inspired us then, and inspires me still, to get out there and make it better for our community. —David Mariner, director, DC Center for the LGBT Community

Dr. Frank Kameny was an American hero who transformed our nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT). … He was known for being feisty and combative, but he was also big-hearted. He honored me personally by attending my swearing-in, and showed his ability to forgive by accepting my official apology on behalf of the government for the sad and discredited termination of his federal employment by the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the predecessor of the agency I now head. We presented and he accepted OPM’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, given to those who are courageous in defense of our nation’s Merit Principles. I am grateful for his life, his service to his nation in WWII, and his passion and persistence in helping build a more perfect union.  He was a great man, and I will sorely miss him. —John Berry, director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management

In memory of a giant. All we have achieved grows from your accomplishments. Thank you Frank. —DC Allen, The Crew Club

I am spoiled that I had the great honor of knowing one of my heroes Dr. Frank Kameny. I first met him at a Pride meeting where he raised the roof by saying that we would win our fight for human rights because we are right and they (our enemies) are wrong.

One of my favorite memories of Frank was running into him in line outside Velvet Nation one Saturday. He was attending an after party and was standing outside in suit and tie surrounded by hundreds of club goers who probably had no idea that they were in line with a living legend. Frank appeared to have an excellent time.

Another great memory was being at the White House when President Obama name-checked him in a speech welcoming the first-ever GLBT Pride event. I asked him later if while organizing the first-ever LGBT protest in front of the White House in the early ‘60s he ever thought that he would be singled out by the president at an LGBT event, Frank paused and said “honestly, no.” Frank inspired so many and lived a life that proved that Gay is Good. —Chris Dyer, former D.C. Office of GLBT Affairs liaison

Wednesday will go down in history as the day that the fight for marriage-equality and full human and civil rights for the LGBT community turned the corner.

It is the day that President Obama announced that he has instructed the Justice Department to stop defending Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in both the Pedersen v. OPM and Windsor v. United States lawsuits challenging Section 3 of the DOMA. This is the section that defines marriage for federal purposes as only between a man and a woman. Three cheers for President Obama who said he believes that this law is unconstitutional. Now as the saying goes, from his lips to the Supreme Court’s ears. But the reality is that this was an extraordinary step for a President who has yet to say he approves of marriage between same-sex individuals. A President who says his views are still evolving.

You could hear the cheers from across the nation from all people who want to ensure full human and civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans. And you also heard the whines of those like Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), that anti-gay hate group, who took to the airwaves to say this was a great chance for her people to continue their fight in the States against marriage-equality and for some bigoted members of the Congress to stand up and defend DOMA which after all is their creation.

I applaud the President for his stance on DOMA, one he actually took when he ran for office, but we must remain vigilant and know we still have a long way to go before marriage-equality is legal across this great nation or ours. We will need the President to stand with us as we continue this fight.

As the President’s statement was being reported yesterday evening and reporters were talking about Maryland being the next state to approve marriage-equality the President of the Maryland Senate, Mike Miller, Jr., said he believes that in a referendum the citizens of Maryland will vote it down.

Maryland may be the place that the Maggie Gallagher’s of the world will try to make their next stand. The same Maggie Gallagher who makes a habit of saying dumb things like “Europe which gave us the idea of same-sex marriage is a dying society, with birthrates 50 percent below replacement.” But I actually like one of her quotes and hope that it will come true. She once said to a group of supporters referring to the future when marriage-equality is a reality across this nation, “Public Schools when they teach about marriage are going to teach your children and grandchildren that your views on marriage are discarded relics of ancient bigotry.”

We in the LGBT community and our allies will have to rededicate ourselves to continuing to make our case for why marriage-equality simply allows gay and lesbian persons to express their love and have the same responsibilities and benefits that anyone in a civil-marriage has. Educate people that our marriages have no impact on anyone else’s and repeat over and over that we don’t expect religions to change their point of view and aren’t forcing them to recognize our marriages. That may be the charitable and loving thing to do but we are not expecting or asking it. We will have to continue to educate our politicians and demand of them that they separate their personal religious views from what they do when making civil law and remind them that this country was founded on the principle of the separation of church and state.

We also have to remember to thank our supporters. President Obama is helping to move us toward full equality. It may not be happening fast enough for some, but the alternatives aren’t pretty. There is not one Republican who supports our equal rights with a chance in hell of winning a Republican Presidential primary. The Log Cabin Republicans are fighting for our issues on the Hill but in all my private conversations with the members of Log Cabin they concede that the leaders of their party today, the ones who control the issues, aren’t there yet when it comes to LGBT equality. I wish them only success in moving the bar.

And then there is that other organization, GOProud, who claimed credit for bringing that stalwart new Republican Donald Trump to CPAC. Talk of a man lacking in any real principles. He has been a Democrat, Independent, and now a Republican. He is a thrice married, sometime adulterer, who currently is opposed to marriage-equality and is pro-life but who donated $50,000 to pro-choice, pro marriage-equality Democrat Rahm Emanuel in his winning Mayoral race in Chicago. I guess the most complimentary word I can think of for Trump is opportunist. And this is the man that GOProud is happy to associate with and present to CPAC.

We have come a long way in the two short years that Barack Obama has been President. We are seeing movement on issues that impact the LGBT community that we haven’t seen in years. We are also seeing a rapidly changing world, a world in which people are standing up for their rights and winning. We will need to continue to stand up and push for ours. Mark my words, February 23, 2011 will be seen as a turning point in our fight for full equality.

We may still be on a bit of a high. Just months after our historic (and a bit lucky) success in repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” friends of mine in the LGBT rights movement are clamoring to paint protest signs and go marching on our National Mall.

While it may seem appealing to some, politically it’s the wrong move. Now, I’m not against marches. In college I marched for women’s lives and in 2009 I was in the National Equality March even though at the time I couldn’t really decide if it was beneficial to the movement.

I enjoyed it but it clearly directed resources away from important statewide battles we were fighting at the time. So at the end of the day it just ended up being a really expensive therapy session for a few thousand people.

Yes, that may sound harsh and I respect the organizers a lot, but I wanted to make my point very clear because a march in 2012 would be a mistake.

First, I am not sure what a march would accomplish. I’ve worked for two current cabinet secretaries and three current members of Congress and while they do pay attention to these things, at the end of the day they are not going to vote or even do something unless something is going to move.

Let’s face it: Barney Frank is right. Not much is going to happen with LGBT rights on a federal level through 2012.

As perplexing to so many of us as it may seem, people like Sen. Lindsay Graham and Rep. Aaron Schock are never going to come around and support the rights of their LGBT constituents.

Even the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) oddly faces opposition in Congress. If we can’t pass a bill that protects America’s youth from bullies, then ladies and gentlemen, we ain’t getting much from this Tea Party Congress.

This is why we need to do everything in our power from now until 2012 to support candidates up for election who believe their LGBT constituents are just as important as everyone else. Leaders like Sen. Sherrod Brown from Ohio, who while in a swing state, gave what is probably the most passionate “It Get Better” speech on the U.S. Senate floor last fall:

“History is on your side. It will, in fact, get better. Workers fought for the right to organize, women fought for the right to vote, African Americans fought for equal justice, and now LGBT Americans of all backgrounds are fighting for equality.

“It is up to us to join this fight. It is up to us to be on the side of people whose lives are a little bit more difficult, perhaps, than others’ lives. It is that spirit of inclusion, it is the pursuit of the American dream, that will, in fact, make it better for these young people, and it will make it better for all Americans.”

Sure gridlock in Washington is frustrating but there is a lot going on in states around the country to keep us busy.  It may not be as sexy as protesting on the Mall or chaining oneself to the White House, but it is just as effective, if not more so.

Maryland is about to pass marriage equality and Rhode Island is just behind. Across the country, districts and states are considering anti-bullying legislation. This is where our battles should take place through 2012: in our state capitals, local governments and school districts.

So let’s go to where the fight is. And when Obama is re-elected and the American public realizes what a disaster the Tea Party Congress has been, we can shift our focus back to the beltway – and I hope you’ll join me then.

The past two weeks have not been kind to the LGBT community. True, there have been a few wins — advances on marriage equality in Maryland and the passage of civil unions in Hawaii, the most obvious ones — but recent weeks have seen a relentless social conservative assault on gays, especially on non-discrimination protections and health care.

Take, for example, the Pence Amendment, with House Republican leadership announcing they would strip millions from HIV/AIDS funding. And a flurry of activity in state legislatures that have laid the foundation for constitutional marriage bans in Indiana, Iowa and Wyoming. Marriage equality appears safe in Iowa—for now. Not so much in Indiana and Wyoming, where same-sex marriage is already illegal and the amendments serve as “double secret” anti-gay marriage decoder rings.

And, of course, the hateful legislation moving forward in Montana that would nullify Missoula’s gay rights ordinance. So much for the GOP promise to “focus” on jobs and the economy.

But a major win for our community happened quietly and without fanfare last week. The Obama administration announced it was finally rescinding most of the Bush-era health care provider “conscience clause” regulations that have been used to discriminate against gay men and lesbians, transgender people, patients with HIV/AIDS, and, of course, women seeking contraception or abortions.

The regulation was approved in 2008 during the sunset of the Bush administration supposedly to allow health care workers to opt out of treating patients based on personal and/or religious beliefs. But like George W. and Dick Cheney’s supposedly benign brand of “compassionate conservatism,” the results were much more insidious to our community, the Washington Post reported.

“[The] rule was widely interpreted as shielding workers who refuse to participate in a range of medical services, such as providing birth control pills, caring for gay men with AIDS and performing in-vitro fertilization for lesbians or single women. Friday’s move was seen as an important step in countering that trend, which in recent years had led pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B, doctors in California to reject a lesbian’s request for infertility treatment…”

The often-abused regulation was described as one of Bush’s “most controversial legacies.”  That says a helluva lot about the Texas oilman who presided over the Iraq war. It allowed the federal bureaucracy to become a Petri dish of movement conservatism — complete with quasi-theocratic legal precedents and state-sponsored bigotry that bred contempt and prosecution for gay men, lesbians and the trans community.

The policy was a cruel joke coming from the same anti-choice, anti-science and anti-gay right-wing cultural Neanderthals that promoted “abstinence” to teens in this country — hello Bristol Palin — and to men and women in AIDS-ravaged Africa.

In the past two years, the rule has been exercised with alarming randomness. CVS locations in Washington, D.C., have been accused of limiting access to condoms. Gay activists in Chicago also cited several Walgreens locations for allowing clerks to refuse to sell condoms to men whom they believed were gay.

That may help an evangelical sales clerk sleep better at night, but it can cost lives. The District’s HIV/AIDS rate is the highest in the country. The HIV/AIDS rate among black gay and bisexual men is much, much higher and those men were more likely to be affected in those cases above.

Only weeks after taking office, the Obama administration announced its intent to repeal the conscience clause. When the new regulations were finally announced last week, almost two years later, there wasn’t too much coverage in gay media, but the right wing went into a virtual meltdown.

“It’s the day pro-life activists have been waiting for, ” CBN bemoaned. “Very disappointing,” said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has been busy in the past few weeks fighting marriage rights in Maryland.

A virtual high-five to the Obama administration for returning some sanity to health care policy, especially when LGBT lives are at stake. Let’s hope over the next two years we will see more regulatory changes that will benefit the LGBT community. And if Pat Robertson is unhappy about something, then we’re probably on the right track.

To win the future, America will need to make the kind of investments and reforms that allow our nation to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.  Effectively implementing the Affordable Care Act is a vital part of this effort.

But some in Congress want to refight the political battles of the past two years and repeal the law along with all the new consumer protections and benefits that go with it.  That would be a major setback for everyone, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

Evidence suggests that at least a portion of the LGBT community is disproportionately uninsured. And historically, many LGBT individuals have been misunderstood, ignored or openly discriminated against in our healthcare system.

For people living with HIV it can be even worse:  Fewer than one in five has private insurance, and nearly 30 percent do not have any coverage at all.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, that is changing. The health care law is already offering new coverage options to many Americans.

The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is already helping people living with pre-existing conditions like HIV/AIDS to get coverage. As of last fall, insurers can no longer deny coverage to children because of their pre-existing health conditions. And in 2014, this protection will extend to all Americans. That’s when new, competitive health insurance marketplaces will be established under the law, along with expanded Medicaid eligibility and new tax credits for middle class families.

The law is also protecting LGBT Americans from many of the worst abuses of the insurance industry. A year ago, insurers could cancel your coverage when you got sick just because you made a mistake on your application. Under the Patient’s Bill of Rights, this practice has been banned, along with other harmful policies like lifetime dollar limits on coverage, which often meant your benefits disappeared when you needed them most.

Thanks to the law, LGBT Americans are getting some relief from skyrocketing premiums with new resources for states to strengthen their oversight of insurance companies and new rules that limit the amount of your premium dollars that insurers may spend on marketing and CEO bonuses.

And the law is helping millions of LGBT Americans gain access to recommended preventive care and screenings for free, including for certain diseases that affect LGBT populations at a rate higher than other populations.

The Affordable Care Act is also making additional investments to address health disparities. New funding will help build a more diverse and culturally competent health care workforce and help community health centers to serve up to 20 million more patients. And increased research and data collection on health disparities will give policymakers the knowledge and tools they need to continue to target resources to underserved communities.

For LGBT communities, the new health care law is already making a difference in people’s lives, helping families get care, addressing health disparities and putting our nation on a better path for the future.

Undoing this progress now would be a terrible mistake.

Kathleen Sebelius is the secretary of Health and Human Services.

It was fascinating to see the Washington Post publish a story on Media Matters for America (MMA) just days after Jamison Foser of MMA reported on the Post’s skewed reporting of Pentagon report on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The Post first leaked the story of the report a week earlier, but when the full report came out the newspaper kicked of its article about the troops’ views by emphasizing the fears of a small minority of military personnel. The headline screamed, “Voices from the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ report of the troops who oppose repeal” and it wasn’t until paragraph three that the reporter finally shared that 70 percent of active-duty and reserve forces saw little or no problem with ending the 17-year-old policy. Then again, last Saturday the headline was “Military chiefs: Right move, wrong time” when not all the chiefs held that view and you had to read the story to find out the truth.

There is no problem reporting negatives but there is a problem when the leads and headlines don’t reflect the real story. That is more like Fox News slanting a story or in the case of Fox often lying about it. The Post’s headline writers and photo editors, more so than reporters, are doing this more often and did so recently during the D.C. mayoral election.

The media have a responsibility to report all sides of a story and to report the facts.

But because they don’t, organizations like Media Matters for America have become more important in our society. When newspapers and broadcast news outlets skew stories someone must hold them accountable and tell the truth to the public. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was an original incorporator and short time member of the founding board of Directors of MMA.) I claim no credit for the idea to start the organization — that was all the doing of David Brock. And while some may still have issues with David, I realized as soon as he shared his idea for MMA how important an organization it would become and that Brock had the ability to make it happen.

Since the time MMA was founded in 2004, it has been a vigilant watchdog of the media and has corrected thousands of misstatements, bad reporting and outright lies that have appeared. I think the organization will become ever more important as we continue to see less and less interest in reporting full stories or making sure they are reported in a fair and balanced way.

Let’s hope that MMA gives more focus to reporting on LGBT issues. I have often read or seen stories on TV about our community and think to myself, do these people live in the same universe that I do? I respect differing points of view, but when outright lies are reported as truths and when the Washington Post devotes major space to a one-sided sympathetic story on the president of the National Organization for Marriage — turning him into an acceptable figure when the Southern Poverty Law Center names the organization a terrorist group — you have to wonder what happened to balance and truth.

The misinformation reported about our community must be constantly refuted and currently no one is doing that very effectively. Media Matters for America can serve that role and if history is prologue they will do it well. This isn’t about getting into the internal debates in our community but monitoring stories that reach the public. Our own organizations have a hard time doing that.

Media Matters for America has earned the respect to get into the trenches with various sectors of the media that like to portray the LGBT community in a negative light by using innuendo, misquotes, partial quotes and outright lies. We need Media Matters for America to stand up for the truth because of their proven willingness to do the research required to call out the lies and liars and do it independently.

There has been a lot of talk in last few weeks about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in and around the United States Senate. First, there were 13 senators (Joe Lieberman and 12 Democrats) who held a press conference to announce that they had the 60 votes to beat back a John McCain-led filibuster.

Lieberman said that repealing the gay ban was merely a question of process.

That “process” is the guarantee of a fair and open amendment process to the underlying bill – the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. You see, when the defense authorization bill was first brought up back in September, Senate Republicans wanted to offer germane amendments to the bill that had no effect on the repeal of DADT. But Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid said no.

So as long as there is a fair and open amendment process, Lieberman says that Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) can be counted as yes votes.

Soon after, returning Sen. Lisa Murkowski (I-Ala.) said she would “not vote against a bill that had that repeal in it.” And then we learned that Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) intended to vote in favor of moving forward with the defense bill while retaining the provision that would end the law.

On Nov. 30, the Pentagon released its long-awaited report examining the implementation of repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The “Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” as it is titled, runs more than 250 pages long and is extremely comprehensive.

Two days later, the Senate Armed Services Committee began a two-day hearing on the report and on the issue of repeal of the 1993 Clinton-era law. Unfortunately, the questions from the Republican side of the aisle were predictable, even off course at times.

However, shortly after the hearing, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) issued a statement that read in part, “Having reviewed the report, having spoken to service members, and having discussed the matter privately with Defense Secretary Gates and others, I accept the findings of the report and support repeal.”

So if you’re keeping count, Mr. President, that’s five Republicans who have now signaled that they are willing to vote for repeal. That is what you demanded from Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director Clarke Cooper – to get you two to five Republicans. “It can’t be that hard,” you said.

Well Mr. President, you continue to say that repeal remains a top priority. Now it’s your turn.  Where is your leadership on this issue? Where is that swift urgency of now – that audacity of hope? Get on the phone and demand that Harry Reid have an open and fair debate for the National Defense Authorization Act. Allow the GOP to offer amendments. You still have 58 Democrats. What are you scared of? It can’t be that hard.

To McCain: It’s time for you to sit down and shut up! That, or simply get out of the way.  You can no longer continue to move the stick for when repeal is OK. Back in 2006, you said you would revisit your views on DADT if and when military leadership said it was time. Ten months ago, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen said it was the right thing to do; that it “came down to integrity.” Once they said it was time, you then wanted to see a study.  Now that they have completed the study, you say the right questions weren’t asked; that the service members weren’t consulted.

Let’s just poll the men and women in uniform on every policy issue that faces the military.  Let’s have them vote on whether we should stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let them vote on rendition.

Since the passage of DADT in 1993, more than 14,000 service men and women have been discharged under this law. That’s 14,000 American jobs that men and women have been fired from simply for having the integrity to say who they are. How do we live in a country where being honest is a disqualifying factor?

This will happen, Sen. McCain. And you will go down in history as a bigot who tried to stand in the way of equal protection for all Americans.

It is time that we repeal this law in an orderly fashion that does not disrupt the organizational structure of our military. That is best done through Congress. If not, we’ll continue to see you in court.

Two years after Barack Obama won the White House and Democrats took commanding majorities in Congress, it’s back-to-Earth time for LGBT Democrats.

It’s hard to keep track of all the promises Democrats made to LGBT voters just two years ago, but they included quite a laundry list of legislative priorities, administrative policy changes and gay-friendly appointments.

To be sure, Obama’s administration has made progress on LGBT issues, from expanding the federal hate crimes law to appointing a record number of openly LGBT officials. The Associated Press — in a story picked up around the country this week — reported that Obama has made more than 150 LGBT appointments. But even that achievement falls short of expectations set back in 2008.

Chuck Wolfe, president of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, was part of a group of LGBT leaders that met with the Obama transition team in December 2008. He told the Blade at the time that Obama’s team said gay activists “would be very happy with the results of the appointments.”

“Our point is we will be happy if there is a cabinet-level appointment,” Wolfe said. “Anything less than a cabinet-level appointment would demonstrate that they did not hear us.”

Despite the many LGBT appointees, including John Berry at OPM, Obama has not named an openly LGBT person to a cabinet-level position.

The problem with campaigning on big change is that when you fail to deliver, as Obama has on multiple fronts, voters aren’t going to show up next time. Next week’s elections will bring the country a new House of Representatives headed not by a San Francisco Democrat, but by Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner, who last week received a zero percent pro-LGBT rating from the Human Rights Campaign. Boehner has consistently voted against LGBT interests and refused to co-sponsor any legislation to benefit gay Americans.

If the Democrats manage to hold the Senate — not a foregone conclusion according to the latest polls — it will likely include more lawmakers hostile to gay rights, including at least a couple of Tea Party-backed candidates. Make no mistake that the Tea Party’s reluctance to talk social issues is not an indication of moderation. It just means they know that anti-gay attacks turn off independent voters during campaign season. But as soon as they’re elected, you can bet on the return of a federal marriage amendment and the inevitable attacks on D.C.’s same-sex marriage law.

Given the history of midterm elections being hostile to the party in power, we knew Obama and the Democrats had just two years to deliver on some key LGBT initiatives, most notably repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t’ Tell” and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. But hopes were far higher than just those two issues. In September 2009, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. Just one year ago, Nadler boldly declared, “… we can and we will dump DOMA once and for all.” Obama campaigned on supporting a full repeal of DOMA, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. One year later, the bill is nowhere and repealing DOMA has vanished from the radar.

As gay Rep. Barney Frank said in an interview with the Blade last year, “I think getting ENDA, a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and full domestic partner benefits for federal employees will take up all of what we can do and maybe more in this Congress.” Boy was he right. This Congress has so far failed to deliver on any of those promises.

Even if this lame Congress manages to repeal “Don’t Ask” in the lame duck session — again, not a foregone conclusion given Sen. John McCain’s promise to filibuster it — the damage to this administration’s relationship with LGBT voters is done. In typically sloppy Democratic fashion, the party has managed to alienate its most ardent supporters — gays — by half-stepping on repeal and appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the military’s gay ban is unconstitutional.  Leave it to the Democrats to piss off a constituency that has nowhere else to go. As bad as the Democrats have been in overpromising and under-delivering, the Republicans are far worse. After next week, LGBT rights advocates return to playing defense on the Hill after failing to capitalize on the incredible and short-lived opportunities of 2009 and 2010.

The Democrats have earned the drubbing they are about to receive next week. Maybe losing the House will teach the party to stay loyal to its base and to fulfill promises made during a campaign. If not, there will likely be a viable alternative for LGBT voters in 2012, as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg flirts with the idea of running an independent campaign for the White House.

The witching hour is upon us. I’m not talking about Halloween, but the event that occurs just 48 hours later — Election Day. With mere days to go, the political map has nearly 100 Democratic seats in play, with the Republican Party poised to retake the House of Representatives, according to most pundits and prognosticators.

To my LGBT family, sorry to say this, but “I told you so.” While some groups have said that we need to be patient with this White House and this Congress, time is quickly running out.

To my Republican brothers and sisters, it is time to start talking about what we stand for. It is no longer OK to only be against everything.

Weeks ago, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, forecasted that the House would flip to the GOP after Nov. 2. He went further by saying that the Senate could see a 50-50 split.

Back in January on these pages, I asked, “What is there to show for the progress of the LGBT movement under Democratic control?” I fear the answer to this question today is the same as it was nine months ago: not much.

While many within our community continue to blindly mock and ridicule gay Republicans as being self-loathing, among other hollow insults, they simultaneously refuse to see that strength through diversity means just that – diversity in everything, including political thought.

This diversity in thought led conservative icon Ted Olsen to craft a conservative constitutional argument in the Prop 8 case in California. And most recently, it is the Log Cabin Republicans, who six years ago during the Bush administration brought a suit against the military that two weeks ago halted all discharges worldwide under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It is Republicans who are winning the argument for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

And while it is very true that the GOP has a dismal record on LGBT issues, Republican leaders are engaging gays and lesbians on issues where we at least have common ground.

Last month, the chairmen of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee spoke at the National Dinner for the Log Cabin Republicans. They did so despite the protests of several conservative groups that asked them to withdraw.

No, their records on traditional LGBT issues aren’t stellar in the least. However, they are engaging us on issues where we can come together. While the Defense of Marriage Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and “Don’t Ask” are at the forefront of our movement, there are other issues that we can and should talk about, such as immigration reform and taxes, just to name two.

The outcome of this mid-term election will produce many things. It will produce heartache, malaise and distrust. But I also hope it will produce a sense of working with both political parties. This can be done by helping to elect more gay and gay-friendly Republican candidates.  There are more than a dozen endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans. Locally, all four Republican D.C. City Council candidates are gay-friendly. And two of them, Marc Morgan (Ward 1) and Tim Day (Ward 5) are gay Republicans.

Even before the holy war attacks on marriage equality during the Bush years, there weren’t many groups willing to work with the GOP on our issues. I hope the last two years of total Democratic control will show these groups that they cannot afford to make that same mistake again. We need to engage both parties, and change hearts and minds one person at a time. If we don’t, we’ll get another Democratic speaker under a Democratic president telling us “not now.”