Gays Shut Out of Cabinet

LGBT Americans were hit with yet another piece of bad news Thursday -- no openly gay people will be appointed to President-elect Obama’s cabinet.

Less than 24 hours after the announcement that antigay pastor Rick Warren would be giving the invocation at Obama's inauguration, reports surfaced that Rep. Hilda Solis is the incoming president’s pick as secretary of the Labor Department. The Labor and Interior posts having been the only two positions left for which openly gay qualified candidates were still in the running, LGBT leaders conceded that no out person will be seated at the cabinet table.

“It’s now clear that President Obama’s top appointees will gather in a cabinet room that does not reflect the living rooms, board rooms, or rooms of worship across this country,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said that in spite of “a very positive series of discussions with the transition team” last week, no forward movement had been made on behalf of gays and lesbians. “Unfortunately, one week later, we learn Rick Warren is giving the inaugural invocation and we're no further ahead in seeing LGBT Americans represented in the new administration,” he said. “A good dialogue without real action is only half the equation.”

Steve Elmendorf, a former deputy campaign manager for John Kerry and senior adviser to Dick Gephardt, called it “very disappointing” that a number of high-quality LGBT candidates had been passed over. “It’s a very diverse and inclusive cabinet for every community except for the gay and lesbian community,” he said.

Not that anyone’s counting, but the 22 cabinet-level positions as announced/projected include three Latinos, two Asian Americans, four African-Americans, five women, and, yes, two Republicans.

Elmendorf observed that the top-tier White House staff doesn’t appear to have any LGBT people in it either. “That just makes the Rick Warren thing an extra kick in the stomach,” he said.

Though Elmendorf sympathized with Obama’s big-tent argument about wanting to reach out to evangelicals through Rick Warren, he added, “but I don’t think [the Obama team] has sent any signals to the gay and lesbian community -- who voted for him overwhelmingly -- that they want to include them.”

The inaugural committee is touting the participation of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association in the inaugural parade as a symbol of inclusion. But the news of Rick Warren's high-profile slot hit especially hard with some of Barack Obama’s most avid LGBT supporters during the campaign.