Alan Cumming: ‘Obama’s done diddly-squat for us’
Bisexual Scottish actor Alan Cumming has attacked Barack Obama for not doing enough for gay rights.
President Obama has promised to end the ban on out gay soldiers but gay rights campaigners are becoming impatient with a perceived lack of action.
Last week, his administration won a stay against a judge’s ruling that the policy should end immediately. The government says it wants to end the policy through Congress, not the courts.
Cumming wrote on his blog: “We keep hearing that Obama is an ally, that DADT [Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell] will end under his watch, but what do we actually get? Diddly squat thus far on a federal level and in addition to that some very offensive statements that would have made the Republicans look bad.
“And in a time when America is full of hatred of all kinds, but especially hatred towards young gay people, what message is the president sending when he repeatedly goes out of his way to spread the message that the gay population is not worthy of the respect that everyone else is?
“How can we counsel our children not to bully their gay classmates, or pry and mock their gay friends, when they see their president, their beloved President Obama, refusing to do the equivalent in regards to troops and other adults?”
Cumming, a prolific gay rights campaigner, said in April that he had been “excommunicated” by his church after he declared he was an atheist.
