Petrelis Files

Lesbian Counsel to Obama
Leaves the White House

(President Obama with his departing Associate Counsel Alison J. Nathan, left, her partner Meg Satterthwaite, and their twin sons Oliver and Nathan, standing in the Outer Oval Office on July 7, 2010. Photo credit: Pete Souza, official White House photographer.)

When Barack Obama chose openly lesbian Alison Nathan to join his legal staff at the White House in January 2009, Gay Inc lauded her appointment. The G/L Victory Fund, where current White House gay liaison Brian Bond once served as the executive director, lists Nathan as one of "a record number" of gays to serve this President. Her appointment attracted a decent amount of attention.

After 17-18 months of service to Obama, according to the caption the White House attached to the photo, Nathan has moved on. I can't find anything through regular Googling and searching news sites about why she's departed the White House, and certainly nothing about anything of substance she may have accomplished during her tenure, or how she advanced gay equality.

While I have many qualms about how the Obama administration and too many Democrats use appointments such as Nathan's as proof they're our friends, I can understand why Gay Inc goes all out to herald such appointments, at the time they are made.

However, if there is any follow up by Gay Inc, or the mainstream or gay press or gay bloggers, about what the appointees actually do that benefits ordinary gay people, I'm not aware of it. We gays should insist on report cards and honest assessments of all Obama's gay appointees.

And now that Nathan is no longer working at the White House, I'd like for her to open up about her reasons for leaving, her thoughts about Obama's way-less-than fierce advocacy for many gay concerns, and his refusal to see gay and lesbian marriage (perhaps like hers, if she and her companion have married in the states or DC that permit such marriages), as equal to opposite-gender marriage, among other issues.

When will Nathan talk publicly about her leaving the Obama administration?