It was part of the House bill last November, so what happened? Does the Democratic party hate us?

Today, the House Rules Committee released the reconciliation bill through which it will vote on the measure that passed the Senate in December. We are deeply disappointed that, after months of lobbying for their inclusion, i mportant measures specifically addressing the needs of LGBT people and people with HIV - ending the unfair taxation of employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, permitting states to offer early HIV treatment under Medicaid, collecting critical health data on LGBT people and addressing discrimination in health care - are not a part of this bill.

Lost in the shuffle during Thursday's courageous acts by GetEqual members, was this update on the Health Care bill gagging itself through Congress:

HRC was not clear in their reporting of the story, but I'm willing to offer a hypothesis.

Like every LGBT equality issue staring down Congress from ENDA, to the repeal DADT, and the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), and the repeal of DOMA -- our alleged allies are not really our allies.

During the immigration reform summit I attended with Bil and several other amazing journalists in New York several weeks ago our so called progressive allies made it abundantly clear they were not going to explicitly include us in immigration reform. If they did, they would lose the support of the Catholic Church. Translation, no UAFA . We would have to do that on our own, we were told.

This week the Catholic Hospitals Association announced support for the Health Care bill. Do you think that had anything to do with the omission of key lgbt provisions? I do. I think the Democratic Party sacrificed us once again to appease the Catholics, and if not the Catholics, than someone who hates our families.

That's right, the Democratic party would prefer to side with groups that hate us.

The Democratic party leaders are very comfortable leaving us on the cutting room floor. It is undeniably clear that there are enough votes to pass ENDA in the House, but they won't do it.

The majority of Americans support a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but soldiers have to chain themselves to White House fences to be heard.

Thoughts of repealing DOMA are not even on the horizon. No one thinks that's happening any time soon. Maybe through the Supreme Court. Maybe.

So, fuck yeah, I'm glad people are risking their freedom through acts of civil disobedience. Being Mr. Nice Gay does not seem to work at the federal level. I'm beginning to think the only way we'll ever get our rights is to be so annoying that Congress wants to vote us away. Since they won't be able to put us on trains to lock us away (our transportation system couldn't handle it) they're going to have to vote us away.

If you don't want to be annoyed, bugged, pestered, protested, called, e-mailed, or sat-in, I have a simple suggestion, give us what we want. Give us our inalienable rights. Give us our freedom. Give us our equality. Do it now.