A look around the Obama Transition Team’s new site, Change.gov, shows the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (with sexual orientation and gender identity/expression) and the Matthew Shepard Act on the Civil Rights agenda. I do not see anything on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and nothing on supporting full federal rights for same-sex couples, all things he said he supports (PDF link).
I’ll give Obama the benefit of the doubt here, and assume the agenda and site will get fleshed out in the weeks to come.
To drop the new administration a hint, however, why not share your story or vision via the Change.gov site, as they request? No guarantee that they’ll use them, but I say a flood of LGBT stories can’t hurt.
This is what I shared: “We need to live in an American where all citizens are free from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. We need to live in an American without the federal Defense of Marriage Act and without Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. We need to live in an America where the rights of a minority group are not decided by the majority. We need to live in an America where lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, and intersex individuals are legally allowed to live and love in the exact same ways as our heterosexual brothers and sisters. No more “separate but equal” in terms of who gets to marry and who has to civil unionize. No more not allowing LGBT people to not adopt or foster children. No more kicking people out of the armed forces for the sexuality with which they were born. Discrimination based on gender identity and expression, and discrimination based on sexual orientation – these have no place in modern America. I have attached a photo of my entire family, including my wife, her parents and siblings and nieces, and including my parents and sibling and niece. As you may be able to see, it is from our wedding ceremony. We are lucky; I hope one day to not have to describe the fact that our families celebrated our marriage with us as “luck.” Please help me and all of my family reach this vision.”