He didn’t promote the g agenda initially and the g mafia was up in arms. They visited him and pretty much gave him an ultimatum. They would out him unless he moved their agenda forward. Which he did. Reggie was removed and he started doing whatever they asked.
Last Friday, an attaché of important gay people from Philadelphia made a trip to Washington D.C. as invited guests of President Barack Obama for the White House’s first-ever gay pride reception….some of them took advantage of photo opportunities to give the late President Ronald Reagan the middle finger
Of the two groups, gays have attained far more than immigration advocates from the Obama presidency, including a repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members that stands as a landmark achievement. Hispanic advocates got far less, helping to push the administration to make deportation policy adjustments that many advocates feel have been too little, too late — and represent a considerable downgrading of their initial hopes.
The contrasting experiences are important as Obama’s reelection campaign sees both groups as crucial to victory. Hispanics are a must-have voting bloc for Obama in almost every battleground his campaign aims to win. Gays have become a prime source of campaign money, with a recent Post review finding that about one in six of Obama’s top bundlers is gay.
Push for an insiders’ strategy
Two weeks before Obama was scheduled to deliver his 2010 State of the Union address, a few dozen gay rights advocates gathered at the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading advocacy organization closely aligned with the White House. The group that showed up that day — activists, lobbyists and aides to large donors — had come to talk strategy. It was now a year into the Obama presidency, and nobody knew how strongly the president was pushing to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay service members.
Activists aligned with Lewis and Yandura went on from that retreat to form the group GetEqual, which spent much of the rest of the year organizing demonstrations that directly challenged Obama, his top aides and Democratic leaders in Congress.
So by the time Obama stood in the Capitol in late January 2010 for his State of the Union speech, some factions of the gay rights movement were already preparing to pressure him — even though he used that grand stage to make a solid-sounding commitment.
“This year,” he said, “I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
In late October 2010, White House aides hosted a dozen or so leading gay rights activists to reassure them that Obama remained fully engaged on their issues, too.>{P> Obama was not scheduled to meet with the group but did so after Jarrett told him that some of the activists “don’t feel your heart is in the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ” The senior adviser said she told the president that she was “trying to convince them that you’re there.”
Obama had heard the complaints before. He and his aides were frustrated by the claims from some activists that they weren’t doing enough.
It was the president’s personal involvement, supporters thought, that had pushed the Pentagon brass into supporting repeal. Part of that effort was pressing the military to conduct internal reviews examining how lifting the ban would affect soldiers and the institutions involved.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obama-bristles-when-he-is-the-target-of-activist-tactics-he-once-used/2012/06/09/gJQA0i7JRV_story.html?utm_term=.87c24601a39f