In today's Washington Post, a very balanced article on "gay pride month" celebrations going on at various federal agencies and departments this months:

With Gay Pride Observances, a Balancing Act

Nice comparison, putting Bush administration efforts (or lack of efforts) in context with the entire breadth of the Clinton administration. Some of you might think the Bush administration is doing more than you thought, others'll think they aren't doing enough. Even the quote from the Human Rights Campaign spokesperson is fair and balanced.

All in all, a nice report on what is actually happening (for better or worse) and not "analysis" and political posturing.

Pretty interesting. On the issue of social equality for homosexuals, I think Bush *as a person*, like Cheney, is probably decent enough. (Cheney appears even more accepting of his daughter than his wife.) Bush's parents always struck me as more liberal on this account.

The article does note that Bush hasn't taken any steps "backwards," but none forward either. I'm glad he has people like Mineta, Powell, and Whitman, who are more open-minded, in his Cabinet, and I'm sure if he weren't being pressed to the wall by the likes of the Family Research Council, etc., Bush'd probably do even more.

Good, even-handed article. (It even avoids trashing John Ashcroft.)

Very interesting article. Does anyone have a good insight into these proclomations that Bush has been asked to make (saying June is "Gay Pride Month"). It seems to me, actually, that a denial of that request was in order. A Presidential proclomation seems like a pretty big deal to me - is it not? Does anyone have any good examples that refute that?

Pretty cool, I think, that other agency heads are supporting their internal gay groups, though. The members of a Republican administration feel comfortable enough with the subject to do that says a lot for how far the issue has come - I can't imagine Bush or Reagan, or even Clinton (in his first term) for that matter, doing some of these things.

Cyd, The business of issuing proclAmations is purely political, as you might imagine, and we see it at work here. Thus, Bush as President, speaking for the whole country/administration, does not issue the desired proclamation, but doesn't squawk when his cabinet and department heads do, signalling some degree of acceptance. I agree that there's an inconsistency between issuing proclamations celebrating other ethnic months, but not ours. In time, I think we'll be included in the list, but wouldn't it really be better if we stopped supporting our differences and reinforcing the idea that there are "suspect classes" among us, and instead focused on our unity by eliminating this whole diversity mentality? I think we'd all be a lot better off for it!

Presidential proclamations are actually worthless. In fact, the President rarely even knows that most of them even happen. His handlers are the ones that scrape it all together, and only defer to him on proclamations that might be construed as "controversial."
There are Presidential proclamations for Spam week, National Safety Month, even Orphan Awareness week. A piece of paper rubber stamped by a staffer without so much as a simple glance by the POTUS does not, IMHO, constitute a high-level recognition of anything important.
And I would actually Bushlette NOT recognize Gay Pride month...if for no other reason than mutual spite between our camps.

Yes, I would put a presidential proclamation on the level of the annual Thanksgiving pardon for the turkey. However, since the office has much public, symbolic significance -- esp since the Current Occupant is even more of a puppet than usual -- I think every gay American should be insulted by W breaking the tradition set by his predecessor.

Since the Office of the POTUS is the highest and loudest bully pulpit in the land -- it does have significance (although we can roll our eyes at some of them). Here's the list of Presidential proclamations issued thus far by Mr. Bush.

While there's no Gay month, it includes:
Jun. 7 Great Outdoors Week, 2002
May 31 Black Music Month, 2002
May 6 National Tourism Week, 2002
May 6 Small Business Week, 2002
May 3 To Restore Nondiscriminatory Trade Treatment to the Products of Afghanistan
May 2 Loyalty Day, 2002
May 2 Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, 2002
Apr. 12 Jewish Heritage Week, 2002
Apr. 12 Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 2002
Apr. 10 National D.A.R.E. Day, 2002
Mar. 25 Greek Independence Day, 2002
Mar. 25 National Bone and Joint Decade Proclamation
Mar. 25 Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A. Proclamation
Mar. 6 Women's History Month Proclamation
Mar. 5 Steel Products Proclamation
Mar. 4 Save Your Vision Week Proclamation
Mar. 4 Irish-American Heritage Month Proclamation
Mar. 4 American Red Cross Month
Feb. 27 Continuance of Cuba National Emergency Notice
Jan. 18 National Mentoring Month, 2002
Jan. 18 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday
Jan. 18 National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2002
Dec. 20 Presidential Christmas Message
Dec. 13 Wright Brothers Day, 2001
Nov. 30 World AIDS Day
Nov. 30 National Diabetes Month, 2001
Nov. 21 Imports of Steel Wire Rod Proclamation
Nov. 21 National Family Week Proclamation
Nov. 15 America Recycles Day Proclamation
Nov. 14 Imports of Lamb Meat Proclamation
Nov. 13 National Farm-City Week Proclamation
Nov. 5 National Adoption Month Proclamation
Nov. 1 National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month Proclamation
Oct. 23 National Character Counts Week Proclamation
Oct. 15 White Cane Safety Day Proclamation
....

Well, there you have it. So much for my Pollyanna view that a presidential proclomation might actually MEAN something.

But, if it's so meaningless, then why would anyone squawk about it, or even care?

[quote]Originally posted by Cyd at Outsports:
Well, there you have it. So much for my Pollyanna view that a presidential proclomation might actually MEAN something.

But, if it's so meaningless, then why would anyone squawk about it, or even care?

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Exactly. To me, proclamation begging is essentially a selfish act that busies the government in minutiae while preventing it from attending to larger tasks. Each of the proclamations listed in an earlier post was directed not to the overall general interest of benefit of the US, but only to a small subset of its population. Proclamations once had their place - declaring a national day of prayer after Pearl Harbor, or a national day of thanksgiving after VE/VJ day, for example - but these have fallen by the wayside and proclamations now issue at the drop of a statistic. Their ridiculousness increases as does their proximity to the grass roots level as well. Witness some of the SF Board of Supervisors' proclamations over the past two decades!

The approach we use in Log Cabin is to stay away from proclamations, to support only those that address an issue applicable to all, and NOT to whine when one arguably identified - usually by others - to our own interests isn't made. After all, how can those in favor of limiting government to its bare necessities support heaping yet another task on it to perform - that of mouthpiece for views usually not shared by the speaker or the audience. If you want that, stay up real late and fiddle around on your AM dial. Even then, there are better uses of one's time!

gmginsfo, While I may agree with you in principle, unfortunately we don't live in a world where proclamations are only made for nationally significant events. In this world, if you're issue/community/interest don't get a proclamation, you're less important than, oh, say, Steel Products. It's the same way with hate crime legislation. It's almost certainly a bad idea, but if it's going to be passed, it must include sexual orientation. And just saying it was a bad idea in the first place, therefor avoiding the political battle is, in my mind, an act of political cowardice.

JQ, How did you get hate crimes legislation out of this? The issue dealt with gay pride, not hate crimes. And actually there was a proclamation of sorts on that angle, albeit an oblique one, when Ashcroft announced that he was going after those murderers in NC (I believe it was) recently on federal charges. If you didn't see it, no problem. Like most everything the GOP does pro-gay, it was almost completely ignored by our "community's" press. Which is not to excuse those GOPers who voted down the HC bill recently in the Senate. If we're going to have one, we should have it for all. But doesn't that rather defeat the whole purpose of HC legislation anyway? Festa omnibus, festa nemo - a party for everyone is a party for no one.

If issuing a proclamation is no big deal, and done routinely, than why not one for Gay Pride month? Not being recognized during our month is a slap in the face. Black music month? Steel Workers? It strikes me that it took more effort to deny it than to simply recognize it. And of course, the log cabin boys just passively roll over and accept it.

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
JQ, How did you get hate crimes legislation out of this?

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I think the omnibus nature of hate crimes legislation, where every type of hate is ennumerated separately, is similar to the list of proclomations. In each case we would be better off without it entirely, but if there's gonna be a list, I want us on it.