Are Gays Voting In Their Own Self Interest?

GayPatriot has to be one of the hardest blogs to write in the blogosphere. I don't read it every day, but every time I do read it, more commenters than not are there to berate him for being conservative. It must be hard knowing almost everything you write is going to earn you a fair level of derision. That's as opposed to this blog, where almost everything I post earns me zero comments. HAH!

Anyway, he posits that the Bush era was a great one for gays in America. He doesn't claim that Bush personally was some sort of crusader for gay rights:

No, I don’t credit George W. Bush personally with this improvement. I don’t look to politicians to make things better for gay people. I just expect them to get out of the way so that private institutions can respond to changing social circumstances. It is their job to protect our freedom, not to make us feel good about ourselves.

George Bush didn't go out of his way to advance the gay agenda. But I've long wondered: what exactly do gays get for their loyalty to the Democratic Party? Set aside the fact that President Obama's administration has all but hip-checked gay rights into the same forgotten pile of promises as closing Gitmo, excluding lobbyists from government positions, ending our involvement and Iraq, and televising the healthcare debate:

What have the Democrats done for gays in the last 20 years? I can only think of two major policies that have been directed at gays: the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Both of those were implemented under Bill Clinton, and the DOMA was championed by Hillary Clinton. Yet Clinton's adminstration is still looked upon fondly by much of the gay community. Hillary of course was a celebrated icon until she ran against Barack Obama and was suddenly found wanting by the Left.

I don't get it. What am I missing? I know the Republican party is associated with Christian fundamentalists. I know they don't campaign on gay rights. But there's only one party that offers the gay community endless promises that never get fulfilled. There's only one party that actually passes legislation that discriminates against gays. There's only one party that can count on gays to vote for them en masse and then pats them on the head after elections. And it ain't the Republicans.