I’m reading a lot about how Obama “reaches out” to his adversaries, and that’s why he’s building a track record of inviting avowed homophobes to stand front and center at his campaign events and now his inauguration.

Okay, I’m game. So we know being a gay-basher doesn’t disqualify you from a seat at the Obama table – in fact, it seems to be an outright qualification for proving Obama’s post-partisanship. If Obama prides himself on reaching out to all sides of every debate, then why is it that Obama has never sat down with, or promoted at his events, an avowed racist or anti-Semite?

If you’re going to argue, as some have, that respect for the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans is somehow now “liberal” and “fringe” – funny that Obama didn’t think it was fringe during his campaign when he publicly embraced our community and our rights – then respect for the civil rights of African-Americans and Jewish-Americans is no less liberal and fringe. Civil rights are civil rights, and it’s well established in American civil rights circles that gay rights are African-American rights are Jewish-American rights are disability rights. We are all one people, our rights are inextricably linked.

It’s odd, and therefore telling, that Obama considers all of us equals, yet he only seems to reach out to those who bash gays, and not those who bash blacks, or Jews, or people with disabilities, or any other member of America’s civil rights community.

Why is that?

If Obama wants to burnish his independent bona fides with a little Sista Souljah now and then, why is his sista always a dyke?

At some point, when your victim is always the same, your actions are no longer a sign of your independence. They’re a sign of your bigotry.