GetEQUAL protests Obama at Miami fundraiser

LGBT activists staged a highly visible protest against President Obama at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser in Miami on Monday, Oct. 11.

GetEQUAL members held signs outside basketball player Alonzo Mourning's estate demanding the commander-in-chief issue an executive order to end discharges under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (GetEQUAL tweeted the president certainly saw the banners as his motorcade drove onto Mourning's water front compound in Coconut Grove.) Activists also shouted "End the Discharges Now" and "We'll Give When We GetEQUAL" into bullhorns from boats. And GetEQUAL members also tethered two 40 foot banners to weather balloons.

"President Obama has failed to deliver on his campaign promises to the LGBT community, and we will continue to remind him of that failure," said Robin McGehee, co-founder and director of GetEQUAL. "If the president is going to travel around the country asking for our dollars and our votes, then we are going to travel with him and insist that he first give us some of the hope and change he promised. As of now, we're still hoping."

Republicans last month successfully blocked a measure that would have allowed debate on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the U.S. Senate.

The Miami protest comes two days after senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett told those at the Human Rights Campaign's annual Washington, D.C., dinner the administration remains committed to ending the ban on openly gay and lesbian soldiers. "We need to get this done," she said.