Some thoughts on the Inauguration…

ArethaOK…is it just me? Sylvester

…or is Aretha Franklin sounding more and more like Sylvester these days?   

Obama's inaugural address is one that bears repeated readings and/or listenings, I'd say. This was a wake-up call for sobriety, to a nation that's grown drunk on celebrity and wealth.

I hear a lot of people expressing disappointment…not enough this, not enough that…much of the same sort of thing we heard early on in this intriguing man's campaign…not "black enough" "not experienced enough"…it's time to stop bringing our expectations to this man and trying to fit him into them, and let him do what we put him there to do. Some people expected more reference to Martin Luther King…missing, I think, the point that this is not just the first African American President…with no diminishment for all that means…this is The President. And I think that's what he was letting everyone within earshot know. And is this the first time a President has acknowledged "non-believers"? How refreshing.

It has been noticed that, within seconds of President Obama's swearing in, the official home page of the White House was updated with a lengthy list of commitments to further LGBT rights. It doesn't go far enough and we will see if he is really committed to it, but there's an opening. Perhaps the only way you aren't going to be disappointed by this man is if you are looking for disappointment. There he will not disappoint.

That said, the expectations for this man are so high, and one suspects so unreasonable, that it is inevitable that he will disappoint: he's already disappointed me with the Gene Robinson snub. I don't care who's decision it was to censor him, the buck still stops on Obama's desk. This wouldn't (and obviously didn't) happen to Rick Warren.

Warren's Christ-centric blather seemed to be generally ignored, to my ears, with nary an "Amen" joining in from any corner at the end, that I could hear. Reverend Joseph Lowery was sweet and funny…though, as my friend Ellen pointed out, after "the black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right"…he left out "And Gays will have their day."

Wow…Gays were left out. What else is new? President Obama is asking us all to "rise above" and leave childish things behind (Are you listenting Senator John Cornyn?…what a numbnuts.)

Anyway, while we're at it…how about putting homophobia on that list of childish things we leave behind?

(…I'm not a cynic, but it's only been three days and I am already finding Wil.i.am and Oprah's "America's Song" insipid.)

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