And so it begins. The frustrating days when the rock-solid campaign promises of Hope and Change prove but fleeting memories. It's an event that annually appends national elections, one that Americans have come to hate but tolerate, because what can we do?

This year, unfortunately, it looks like the nation's gays and lesbians have been hit particularly hard by the blow of reality.

On November 4, Barack Obama won handily in heavily gay precincts across the United States. His campaign of reform and acceptance was just what the homosexual community needed after eight years of marginalization at the hands of Dubya, and he assured voters concerned with LGBT issues that he would do his best while in office to make strides for their community. Even before setting foot in the Oval Office, Obama's half-truths are beginning to show.

Although he made it very clear before the election that he wanted to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, soon after winning the presidency, Obama's outrage over the practice began to flounder.

President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say.

Repealing the ban was an Obama campaign promise. However, Mr. Obama first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus and then present legislation to Congress, the advisers said.

But bureaucracy is bureaucracy, and it can dash the hopes of anyone in office, right? Sure, but bureaucracy can't explain away the president-elect's most recent slap in the face to America's gays and lesbians: his decision to ask Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Warren, of course, is the pastor who has publicly stated that he considers homosexuality comparable to bestiality and pedophilia. And he recently said this in an interview with NBC:

You say because I have natural impulses to the same sex, I shouldn’t have to reign them in. Well I disagree. I think that’s part of maturity, I think that’s part of delayed gratification, I think that’s part of character

How's the saying go? Ah, yes: That's not change, that's more of the same. And unfortunately, we think there's more rude awakenings ahead. Especially for the nation's gays and lesbians, who the new administration seems to think are expendable, despite its assurances. Ain't politics grand?