[Thanks to Andrew and Glenn for the links! Welcome readers, and be sure to follow me on Twitter. -Ed.]
Andrew Sullivan’s Sunday column this week is his description of and thoughts about President Obama’s leadership style. It’s a great read that I urge folks to check out. He concludes:
The more you observe, the clearer it is that Obama is working on an eight-year time cycle. He wants deep structural change, not swift superficial grandstanding and conflict. He is taking his time and keeping his cool. The question is whether a volatile electorate in a terrible economic time will be patient enough to wait.
An issue not raised in Andrew’s piece is LGBT issues and the president, an issue near to Andrew’s heart and oft found on his blog. The piece, though, better than most, is at the same time the perfect description of what I take to be the President’s view toward advancing LGBT issues. From the conclusion back through Andrew’s description of the President, it works. Earlier in the piece, Andrew writes:
As he had once written when describing his strategy as a black man in a white world: no sudden moves. And we have seen none. Obama likes the system; he just wants to make it work for more people.
Obama is also, at his core, a community organiser. Community organisers do not jump into a situation and start bossing people around. They begin by listening, debating, cajoling, inspiring and delegating. Less deciders than ralliers, community organisers explain the options, inspire self-confidence and try to empower others, not themselves. If you think of Obama even on a global stage, this is his mojo. And those community organisers do not tell you to expect instant results. It takes time when you try to build real change from below. But the change is stronger, deeper and more real when it comes.
Efforts at making LGBT change “more real” is what I see happening in the Obama Administration. The fact that Robert Gates, President Bush and now Obama’s Secretary of Defense, and Army Secretary nominee Republican Rep. John McHugh are going to be two of the top civilians working with the military on the repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — particularly in light of continued difficulties coming from the military leadership — is genius political strategy that anyone who can step back from the day-to-day struggle must admit.
Although Andrew wasn’t writing about “gay issues” in his column, his analysis of Obama is proven all the wiser when applied to the LGBT concerns and issues that I’ve been focused on these past few weeks. Andrew’s conclusion, as well, might serve as a statement to LGBT activists, specifically:
[Obama] wants deep structural change, not swift superficial grandstanding and conflict. He is taking his time and keeping his cool. The question is whether a volatile [constituency] will be patient enough to wait.
Isn’t deep structural change what we want? Aren’t political grandstanding and culture-war conflicts the very problems that we, as LGBT activists, want to work to end?
Many people would say that we shouldn’t need to “wait” for equality, and they would be right. But let’s be clear that having the patience to take careful, intentional steps that will best accomplish our goals, which is Andrew’s point, is not the same thing as being told that our issues don’t matter and that we’ll just need to wait on our changes. This isn’t waiting for waiting’s sake; this is waiting so that solutions are real and permanent.
People want change and we want it now, but that’s not going to make it reality. Maybe, just maybe, if we give this President a chance, he could actually come through for us — with real, lasting equality advancements.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
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he taking his time on it because he doesn’t want to upset too many people so he can get elected to a second term.
The problem with the 8 year cycle is if he doesn’t get re-rlected we get nothing.
Democratic President …
Democratic House …
Sixy Seat Democratic Senate …
The tide is about as high as it’s ever going to be.
President Obama’s political instincts are tuned to his political survival – not towards anything approaching “social justice” and other softer issues.
But he does talk prettily about such things.
I’m reasonably sure that, by the end of President Obama’s first term, the LGBT community will discover as the people in Africa are discovering now, that Dubya was a better friend than Barack.
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Eight-year cycle does not equal “deep structural change.” It equals, “re-elect me, you c*cksuckers.”
Earth to wishful thinking gays: Obama has a bigger constituency to keep active and voting than you: blacks, who are conservative/religious on gay issues. In short, you ain’t gettin’ nothin’ now and you ain’t gettin’ it 8 years from now (assuming he’s reelected which will be largely an economic issue and, at the moment, isn’t exactly looking slam dunk). But please address those checks to: Democratic National Committee, K Street, Washington DC.
“[Obama] wants deep structural change, not swift superficial grandstanding and conflict”
He wants both. Witness his first months and the hastily constructed and unread bills.
Fundamental change on several levels, one being arrogantly telling republicans who and who they should listen to, along with fundamentally changing America and all that.
I hate to disappoint Mr. Sullivan but the way things are going it is doubtful that any of the accomplishments Mr. Obama can already point to will last past 2012, and whether he will be able to add any more (which will also not last past 2012). The climate change bill and health care bills will most likely fail in the Senate. With unemployment continuing to rise and the Administration still stuck on “But B-B-B-Booosh left us with such a terrible mess!” and the poll numbers continuing to fall, the future does not look bright for Mr. Obama unless the facts on the ground change. On the economy in 2009 Barack Obama is channeling George Bush on Iraq in 2005-2006. The only difference is that Mr. Obama will have no surge to save him.
The problem with the whole notion that Obama is working on “deep structural change” is that we already have in motion a deep cultural shift towards acceptance of homosexuals in our society–a shift that has been in progress for the past several years. We’re already at the point that in much of the country homophobia is as acceptable as racism. My bet is without any help from the White House we’ll be to perhaps 50% of our country having gay marriage and more accepting public displays of affection without discomfort or even raising an eyebrow (beyond that raised by a hetro couple engaged in the same PDA).
By rephrasing the notion that Obama is helping make “deep, structural changes” rather than in helping to formulate more concrete policy changes, Obama is setting himself up to take credit for an inevitable shift that he didn’t set into motion, while not actually taking any concrete steps himself.
Like Obama’s formulation of “creating or saving jobs”, he is setting the rhetorical landscape to take credit and declare triumph while not doing a blasted thing for the LGBT community.
And you’re actually supporting a do-nothing President?
We just need to wait for the mix in Congress to change so that he can look like he’s trying to get it done without having to take the risk that it will poll poorly if he were to actually do anything on this topic.
Don’t try it when the Republicans can’t sustain a filibuster; then it would pass. Clearly that isn’t the goal; the goal is to look like you want to do something while failing. If you succeed what can you promise them next election cycle?
You guys have a lot to learn about politics. If you give someone something they’re gone. If you dangle it just above their heads they’ll keep jumping for you forever.
Sorry to be taking up as much of this thread as I am, but I have too much to say. Everyone has missed the point of sully’s statement that obama wants to make sure his changes stick, that they won’t be reversible in the extremely unlikely instance that the political winds change.
We have had years of people fighting for gay rights against the tide, back to when the first two Congressman ever introduced a gay rights bill, a decade before Stonewall. (To break the intensity a moment, can anyone name them? One of them was black, btw, and I think he was a minister as well.)
We’ve had people fighting for years, hoping the future would bring the result they were just starting to make possible. We HAVE had people, once we started making progress, speaking in our favor to get our votes. (Remember Romney, running for the Senate, promising to be a better friend to us than Ted Kennedy? Remember what Romney said last year, running for the Presidency?)
But now we have someone who is prepared, who has said he is prepared to give us what we want, someone who has already done more than any other President for us and who has yet to do one single thing against us. (Our only real complaint — other than the myths about the DOMA brief — is that he isn’t acting fast enough for us.)
And how do we respond? By claiming that he is our Biggest Enemy. By sneering at what he has done and attacking him because he hasn’t done more. And somehow he manages, every single week, to send us a signal that — despite ingratitude that he would be justfied in hurling back into our teeth — he is still making sure that things are changing.
But signals aren’t enough, I guess, and everything can be seen as ‘just a signal.’
I don’t know if you know this, but your blinders are on. Look back over all of Obama’s actions on LGBT civil rights. Positioning himself as gay friendly was a cheap political trick, and thanks to bloggers/apologists like you, President Obama has nearly succeeded in silencing the online gay community’s wake-up call to the administration’s homophobia.
Some of you would do well to realize how government works. Presidents don’t better the world with a glorious stroke of the pen and then it’s all purple unicorns dancing on rainbows of happiness. A president can’t just sign away legislation at will. Issuing declarations won’t change law, and then people would be rightly complaining about band-aids on gaping wounds. Changing policy takes time and requires a lot of legal groundwork to do so in a manner that makes it permanent. Knee-jerk reactionaries are doing much more harm than good for gay rights. Keeping pressure on the president is a good thing, turning on our best hope for real change is incredibly foolish. What are you going to do, turn to the Republicans?
You should probably reassess your Instapundit-link thanks – I think he’s making fun of yours and Andrew’s naïveté.
I’m willing to keep an open mind about Obama and gay issues. He might, in the end, turn out to be good. He hasn’t been so far, but we will see.
What I am not willing to have right now is an open wallet or open inbox. Obama gets no money and I have unsubscribed from his email list until he makes some significant positive moves. No token stuff like moving expenses for gay partners. I want at least one of: suspension of DADT, passage of ENDA or discussion of DOMA.
I want to believe you, and Sullivan, and POTUS. I really do. And I do think that yes, there could conceivably be some benefit to slow, cautious change.
BUT.
It’s not that POTUS is issuing statements saying, “This doesn’t work so I will fix it!” It’s that he’s backing things like the DOJ brief on DOMA, and he’s saying that a fix of DADT will undermine “cohesion” and “discipline” in the military.
Yes, he has made some appointments of some out gay people. But he has also chosen Rick Warren as his Inaugural preacher, and his choice of one queer person for the Faith Based committee is not all that supportive in the face of the several extremely homo/trans phobic individuals who have also been set on that committee.
Just because he issued a pretty proclamation and had a nice photo op for Stonewall doesn’t mean he’s going to fix the issues faced by the GLBTQ community. He is unlikely to have a stronger Congressional advantage than he has now, and by putting us on the list for the second term, he puts our liberties, freedoms, and rights at risk as well. While I admire the man’s intelligence and cautiousness, this is not a time for the longview. This is a time for equality.
Dont’ ask. Don’t tell. Don’t change.
http://sallyparadise.wordpress.com/
Re: Obama, DADT, DOMA, “war” funding, national health, bail-outs for banksters, Israel-Palestine, etc.
He’s looking more, and more like Bush in blackface.
Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace
Washington, Connecticut
On a more positive note, I’m busy officiating for couples who are coming to CT to wed this summer from around the country, because they aren’t allowed to do so in their own home states just yet. Congrats.
obama on an 8 year cycle…head back in sand…
separately did anyone see obama’s favorite group in action last week?
Muslims in Minneapolis verbally assault gay guy – Video
At what point will the LGBT demand he do anything? If NOW is not “the right time”, then the “right time” will never arrive. It’s time to face reality: Obama doesn’t CARE about the gay community. He can talk a good game, but look at his history: His church was about as virulently anti-gay as you can find. His constituency is not terribly pro-gay.
If you continually give a man a pass for doing exactly what the prior President you opposed, then why SHOULD he do anything?
Clearly, there is apparently zero political risk in doing nothing. If he waits until 2010, then you’ll be saying “Well, it’s not HIS fault”.
He got that Ledbetter Act passed because there is a risk women won’t always vote Democratic.
Why should the Democrats respect the LGBT community if the LGBT community, sadly, doesn’t seem to respect itself.
Dick Cheney is a markedly bigger friend to the LGBT community than Obama has been or shows any indication of being.
Move quickly, suffer a backlash and your agenda stalls or backslides. Move slowly and you build momentum that pushes your agenda forward. Although you can change policy overnight, you can’t change feelings and opinions of the general population, and that’s what needs to change for real progress to be made.
Hey Chris! Great to see the link on “Daily Dish.” Hope you are well.
Your analysis is plausible, but just that – plausible. And, the nature of the conclusion is such that we can’t know until there’s been action (or confirmed inaction). But I think it is fair to say at this point that Obama is, at least, not a “do nothing.” From what we’ve seen on his follow-up on otherr campaign promises, it is safe to say that some strategy is in the works. It may not be as fundamental and long-term equality as your analysis predicts, but I feel confident to say that there is a strategy. The “Do Nothing President” argument just rings hollow, even if change is not as immediate as some would like.
Just two cents. How’s things?
“More knee-jerk “they’re black people, so they must be bigots” from MikeinSC.”
Or, more accurately, Mike has read polling data at any point in the last decade or so. That the black community is quite opposed to gay marriage is hardly a secret.
“Did Cheney oppose Prop. 8? If so, please provide the link to coverage of his doing so.”
Cheney has come out in favor of states deciding if gays should marry. Said it publicly in 2004 in the biggest dispute he had with Bush.
Obama, on the other hand, compared gay marriage to incest in court documents.
So, yeah, he’s a much better friend.
But continue labeling anybody who doesn’t oppose your goals but isn’t a Democrat a bigot. I’m sure that will work wonders. I can see why a Republican would take the time to stand up for the LBGT community — they have a tendency to be so open-minded about Republicans.
Hint: DADT and DOMA are Democratic policies. They are still in place, and not going anywhere, with Dems having a veto proof majority in Congress…because now, apparently, is not the “right time”.
But, hey, it’s probably the Republicans’ fault that Obama is using the community.
“Cheney (still with an approval rating below 20%)”
37%, actually. Higher than Pelosi or Reid.
“Obviously — although Clinton signed DADT and DOMA into law and Bush supported the FMA — Obama’s support for repealing DOMA and DADT and opposition to the FMA means that he’s the President that those supporting LGBT equality should view with the most suspicion and assumption of bad-faith.”
I guess professed support is more important and relevant than actual actions. He vigorously defended DOMA in court — Presidents have, historically, had few qualms opposing a law in court. Obama CHOSE to defend it…not because he opposes it, but because he supports it.
Be serious for a moment — if all it takes to keep a community in the Dems’ good graces is them talking a good game and delivering absolutely nothing, guess how quickly your desires will ever see the light of day? Libertarians such as myself legitimately don’t care about gay marriage (don’t like courts legalizing it, but will applaud legislatures that do so), but lord, why would I waste my time helping anybody who will simply refer to me as a bigot because I notice that the Dems have done an amazing amount of nothing for this community?
Again, I’ll ask — why hasn’t he done it yet? He has a veto proof majority.
Until you provide an answer outside of “Well, the Republicans — who are all but dead, remember — will kill him for it”, then you need to realize that you care about the issue less than he does.
You simply want to be lied to. Sully clearly wants to be lied to. I’d like to see a group not sell itself to the lowest bidder with such gusto, but it’s not my job to make the LGBT make the wise decision.
Follow up hint: Make it clear that the Dems don’t have a guarantee of your vote and they might actually do what you want. Since they know you’ll vote for them overwhelmingly and give them tons of money no matter what they do…why in the world would they help you?
I hope Chris is right, but I’m skeptical. We’ve had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress for six months and a Democratic President for nearly six months. Not a single piece of LGBT rights legislation has been enacted, and the Administration has taken no formal action on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
There’s overwhelming public support for ending DADT and for passing anti-discrimination legislation. There’s no need to spend time building more public support for these measures.
I donated to the Obama campaign and I voted for Democrats in the hope of getting movement on gay issues. Now that the Democrats are in power, if they want my support again, they have to earn it. I expect the Democrats to enact ENDA and to repeal DADT during the current Congress. If these measures aren’t taken by 2010, I will not continue to vote for Democrats for national office, and I certainly will not donate. I urge other gay people to make the same promise.
Chris, I was going to say what someone else said earlier, that I wouldn’t trumpet the infusion of readers from Instapundit. Not only was he obviously sneering in his comments, but this thread alone has shown a ’suspiciously’ large number of people referring to ‘your rights.’ I dion’t think anyone has actually said ‘you people’ but it’s buried there.
The views and numbers are nice, but it gives those of us who would say ‘our people’ or ‘us’ a lot of obstruction to deal with. On the other hand, they make nice targets, and destroying their arguments might help convince uncommitted lurkers.
Yup, meant filibuster-proof, not veto-proof.
“Second, just to clear away the more fragrant underbrush, we’ve discussed the myths about DOMA so often that you just have to go to the home page and start reading anything from the past two weeks. No, Presidents DON’T routinely refuse to support legislation they disagree with. It happens very rarely, and only when the law is clearly Unconstitional”
So you acknowledge they HAVE done so in the past and Obama CHOSE to not to do so here. He has CLAIMED he feels it is wrong and discriminatory. If it is, in fact, discriminatory, then that would fall under the whole “unconstitutional” thing, would it not?
But defend him. It’s not MY interests that are being ignored by him in the situation of gay marriage. As I said, gay marriage is hardly a concern of mine. If it is passed, grand. More power to you.
If the gay community wishes to defend what Obama has done, however, then the problems they are facing are nobody’s but their own. Don’t expect anybody not in the Dem Party to lift a finger to help because you’ve quite explicitly said you don’t want the help.
Continue blindly supporting the DNC. Let me know how well that works out for you.
Apparently, rhetoric trumps action. Glad to know that.
“As for blacks, the fact is that Christian sects that are Conservative oppose gay rights more strongly than average, less educated and poorer people likewise, and blacks have a higher percentage of Baptists and similar denominations, and are poorer and less educated than the average. If you can show me a survey that ‘corrects’ for these factors and has enough participants to be statistically relevant, I’ll listen. Until then your comment is simply racism.”
So, if I create a survey that ignores the black community’s actual makeup and, instead, focus on an ideal situation that does not exist, it’ll be fair then?
OK.
How about you find a single poll where blacks support gay marriage? Just one. You know they don’t because you said “Well, Christians oppose it and blacks tend to be Christian…so if you ignore THAT, then you’re a bigot, Mike”.
Hardly.
Muslim blacks aren’t any more supportive of gay marriage than Christian blacks.
“(Btw, nobody condemns ‘Eastern Europeans’ who support some of the most vicious and violent homophobes as ‘representing a group’ or Koreans, many of whom follow some rather wild versions of Christianity. But blacks, oh, they are just ‘all alike’ it seems. Pfui!”
I am intrigued about when Eastern Europeans became a major voting bloc for the Democratic Party. Can you provide links demonstrating this?
You’re dealing with everybody. I’m dealing with, you know, the Democratic voting base. Catholic Hispanics and church-going blacks don’t support gay marriage. Period. And, hate to break it to you, there’s A LOT more votes in those communities than in the gay community.
…and, honestly, the Dems will get the gay community’s money ANYWAY. They don’t need to do anything. You’re pretty clearly demonstrating that here.
“But your biggest absurdity is your political statement. You pose as a Libertarian, but libertarians don’t make the distinction between courts and legislatures you do.”
I often ask non-Libertarians what Libertarian philosophy consists of. Honestly. Happens all of the time.
“But the you try to argue for us to ‘give the Republicans a chance. Well, I might consider that, if their national platform — and so much more offensively in their state platforms — they did not declare their opposition to our rights.”
Well, the President you voted for has likened gay marriage to incest.
Not seeing a great deal of support there.
He’s also quite openly said he opposes gay marriage. I know you HOPE he’s lying about that…but nothing he’s done to date indicates that.
“I might consider that if they would publicly reject the backing of those religious groups that are foremost in attacking us and work hardest to prevent us from getting our rights — and in many cases would rob us of the rights we have and even overturn Lawrence.”
…considering that you have few problems with the members of the Democratic base that loathe gay marriage, I find this complaint a bit silly.
“I’ll consider it when an openly gay non-incumbent runs as a Republican for a major office — one which he has a chance to win, not a district like mine where no Republican stands a chance — and has the wholesale — and visible — support of his party.”
And have the gay community lash out at them for “selling out”? Ask Michael Steele how nice it was to have “progressives” tossing Oreo cookies at him while campaigning for Governor. Ask how Paula Jones felt with the support NOW gave her during her smearing at the hands of Clinton. I mean, has there been a case before where a President was accused of harassment, attacked his accuser, and NOW defended the man? “Progressive” groups are infamously closed-minded to people who don’t follow their ideals exactly.
“Which of those, or what person I overlooked would be even likely not to directly move to curtail our rights?”
I can name a guy right now who is doing nothing to stop curtailing your rights.
His name is Barack Obama.
“MikeinSC, you assumed that because Obama’s church was predominately black that it must be opposed to homosexuality. That’s bigoted. If you don’t understand that your assuming what is true of the majority of a group (black church-goers) MUST be true of every member of that group (Rev. Wright), you are unsurprisingly an example of a man who embodies a quality that he doesn’t know how to define. Also unsurprising that you don’t acknowledge your error. Indeed, I bet you’ll continue to propagate the lie, because it’s easier than understanding that what may be true of the majority of a group is not true of every individual within it.”
Wright felt it was far less important to deal with that than a wide array of other issues.
No, he was not terribly supportive.
But continue believing.
“That’s what Prop. 8 was: the people of California deciding if gays should be able to marry. Politicians like Obama said that Californians should vote against it. Politicians like Cheney are apparently indifferent to the outcome. Cheney is opposed to courts’ declaring a constitutional right to SSM. He thinks each state should decide it by a democratic vote.”
Which is a thoroughly valid stance and one that is hardly hostile to gay interests.
Obama loves speaking up on issues he has no power over. On issues he can directly influence, though, he does seem awfully quiet, doesn’t he?
Cheney doesn’t oppose gay marriage at all. If a state passes it, more power to them. Obama fought, in court, to oppose ending DOMA.
Can you explain how Obama won CA so overwhelmingly — yet Prop 8 STILL passed?
“You were called a bigot because you assume that black people are a monolithic entity that thinks with a single Borg mind”
…like the “all conservatives really hate gays” nonsense I’m seeing here?
Hate to break it to you, but the black community has never been supportive of gay marriage. Does that mean every single black person opposes it? No. That’s an idiotic claim.
Do MOST oppose it? Yup. Absolutely. Have opposed it for a long time.
“Really? Then why did Bush have his DOJ defend McCain-Feingold’s constitutionality, even though Bush himself had publicly stated doubts about the law’s constitutionality?”
Bush didn’t oppose it greatly. He did oppose other laws in court. As did Clinton.
Obama, OTOH, did not.
“Chris, I was going to say what someone else said earlier, that I wouldn’t trumpet the infusion of readers from Instapundit. Not only was he obviously sneering in his comments, but this thread alone has shown a ’suspiciously’ large number of people referring to ‘your rights.’ I dion’t think anyone has actually said ‘you people’ but it’s buried there.”
No. It’s several heterosexuals posting here pointing out that if the gay community wants marriage, giving Obama a pass here is hardly an effective tool.
YOU want gay marriage. Care to guess the impact on my life if it remains illegal? That’s right — none. It’s not MY concern on the line here. If you want to get married, fine. Do something about it. But don’t sit there and give money and your votes, blindly, to a party that is demonstrably not going to do one thing to help you.
“The views and numbers are nice, but it gives those of us who would say ‘our people’ or ‘us’ a lot of obstruction to deal with. On the other hand, they make nice targets, and destroying their arguments might help convince uncommitted lurkers.”
Except you’re not doing that. You’re trying to claim that the black community really isn’t opposed to gay marriage (it is) and that Obama really will deal with the issue…eventually. Now is not the time, apparently.
Perhaps when the GOP gains some more seats and its failure can be blamed on them, huh?
MikeinSC,
“Wright felt it was far less important to deal with that than a wide array of other issues.”
Wright has been on the cutting edge of outreach to LGBT folks. And so long as you refuse to admit in the face of documented evidence that Rev. Wright has been supportive of gay people — so long as you keep insisting that he must be like All Those Black People — I’m still going to say that you were speaking bigotry. You don’t get a pass on racist bigotry by being a patronizing concern troll regarding gay rights. If you retract the statement, “His church was about as virulently anti-gay as you can find,” then we can move on. So long as you are defending that incredibly erroneous statement, which was based on your bigoted assumption that a black church must be an anti-gay church, you lack credibility.
“Obama fought, in court, to oppose ending DOMA.”
Obama’s Administration did not deem DOMA to be clearly unconstitutional. Gay attorneys who worked at the Clinton DOJ have said that Obama was obliged to defend the law. Not everything that is discriminatory is unconstitutional (and you must have a piss-poor understanding of conservatism if you believe otherwise). For example, neither age nor disability discrimination is *unconstitutional*; they are illegal only by statute.
But you’re welcome to have the last word. Ignorance, unfortunately, usually does.
“Wright has been on the cutting edge of outreach to LGBT folks. And so long as you refuse to admit in the face of documented evidence that Rev. Wright has been supportive of gay people — so long as you keep insisting that he must be like All Those Black People — I’m still going to say that you were speaking bigotry. You don’t get a pass on racist bigotry by being a patronizing concern troll regarding gay rights. If you retract the statement, “His church was about as virulently anti-gay as you can find,” then we can move on. So long as you are defending that incredibly erroneous statement, which was based on your bigoted assumption that a black church must be an anti-gay church, you lack credibility”
You’re aware that Wright spoke AGAINST the UCC’s policy to support gay marriage, right?
Read his own words criticizing the UCC for pursuing this over other issues:
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/03/trumpet_article_8_05.pdf
“Obama’s Administration did not deem DOMA to be clearly unconstitutional. Gay attorneys who worked at the Clinton DOJ have said that Obama was obliged to defend the law.”
That is patently false. DoJ is not required to defend them. They generally do, but there is no requirement to do so. They can opt to oppose it. They can opt to not do anything.
They have leeway. They CHOSE to pursue this path.
“But you’re welcome to have the last word. Ignorance, unfortunately, usually does.”
You’re demonstrating that clearly.
But, hey, why should I care? I’m married. If you cannot marry, tough. Continue blindly defending people who loathe you.
I lack the desire to wisen you up. Continue pursuing the same path that has led you nowhere. I have better things to do than to try and convince bitter folks who hate to face that THEY cause a lot of their problems.
Keep voting Democratic. It’s working WONDERS thus far. I mean, your party only passed DOMA, DADT and is showing no signs of stopping it.
Man, imagine if you voted for a party that DIDN’T support you completely.
MikeinSC,
I can’t figure out if you’re functionally illiterate or deliberately clueless. Rev. Wright’s statement in the newsletter was a lengthy criticism of those black Christians who devote more energy to OPPOSING same-sex marriage than they do to SUPPORTING efforts toward racial and economic justice. It was not at all a criticism of anyone who supports same-sex marriage, nor was it a criticism of the UCC.
Indeed, he quotes a whole letter from the Conference Minister of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ that is in favor of same-sex marriage — a letter that refers to anything less than marriage as “separate but equal” — and he praises the letter as thoughtful and sensitive. Did you totally miss that part? Or, let me guess, you saw a conservative blogger cite this newsletter as proof that Rev. Wright opposes SSM, and you didn’t bother to read it yourself.
But you’ll keep pushing your false claim that Rev. Wright’s church is “virulently anti-gay,” because you believe That’s How Black People Are. Rev. Wright doesn’t loathe gay people, and they in return hopefully will know better than to loathe him based on your lies.
I wish the folks who claim that Bush was such a good friend to the LGBT community would explain what evidence they base that upon (Bush’s support for a Federal Marriage Amendment that would preclude state-level SSM recognition?). It’s almost getting to the point that I’d recommend barring commenters who spout this talking-point without anything to back it up — they eat up bandwidth and hosting space without adding anything useful.
Also, while it’s irrelevant to the topic under discussion, how was Bush “a better friend” than Obama to “the people in Africa”? I am guessing Passerby can’t even distinguish among the countries within Africa sufficiently to explain which of them Bush was befriending — it’s not like he was BFF with Libyans. But that’s a common malady in the GOP; see also Sarah Palin’s thinking South Africa was a region within a country, and not a country itself.
“Dubya was a better friend to the LGBT community than Obama.” This gies beyond madness. The only equivalent I could imagine would have been an abolitionist in 1860 arguing that some Southern Writer who had written of the ‘biblical necessity towards treating your slaves humanely’ was a better friend to “the Negro” — as it would have been put — than Lincoln, who was unwilling to immediately (an Unconstitutionally — as the Constitution read then) end slavery.
Bush opened the White House to our “Christianist” enemies, never spoke against our enemies — and profited from their work — when they used us as targets to stir up hate — and, at best, once admitted he had no objection to ‘civil unions’ but never ACTED on that statement.
I’m sorry but a person who really believes this has as great a ‘disconnect from reality’ as the Young Earth Creationists, the ‘Birthers’ and the ‘black helicopter’ types. To describe them as objectionable and fact-blind is an understatement.
But mostly they are just sad.
(If anyone made the same points ‘downthread,’ my apologies. I haven’t gotten there yet. I saw this and could not stop from replying.
Mike G, if Obama were worried that African-American voters would abandon him over LGBT rights issues, why did he state his opposition to Proposition 8 and otherwise support LGBT issues during the presidential campaign? I thought the theory that the Obama-haters were pressing was that Obama had merely supported LGBT issues during the campaign in order to get that community’s votes, and now it’s safe to abandon LGBT folks. But if the big scary black people could be put off Obama by his support for LGBT issues, it doesn’t make sense that he would have stated such support during the campaign and thereby risked losing their support (particularly during the Democratic primaries, when black voters initially showed more support for Clinton than Obama, yet Obama positioned himself as more progressive on LGBT issues than Clinton was).
Try again.
Why did Obama support LGBT rights during his campaign? To get their votes. At the same time he was reassuring black voters that their conservative values would be upheld. Obama has been on all sides of every issue, and inexplicably, no one was scared off because they all believed he was just “biding his time”, like the article above suggests. You Obama voters just believed what you wanted to believe, and ignored the rest of what he said (more importantly, you ignored his extremely thin record), and now you’ve given the nation a pig in a poke. Without even putting lipstick on it.
Again, I am not reading below before i comment. But Obama already HAD our votes — it’s only now that some Aravosian dittoheads are seeing his ‘great danger’ to us, during the election we knew how the “Christianists” — I’m far to the left of Sullivan, but I’ve always loved the term — were lined up 100% behind the Republicans — and had been since at least 1992.
He had no need to challenge black homophobia in the churches to a meeting of black churchmen. It won him no votes he didn’t already have, and threatened many that were already his.
He had no need to insist on a gay clergyman at the Inauguration — he was already elected, and who would remember it four years from now if he were ‘engaged in a plan to cripple our community.’
He had no need to make the gay appointments he has, challenging homophobes in the military and even putting a gay clergyman on his ‘faith-based’ initiative board.
He had no need to name one of the founding members of the Congressional LGBT Caucus as Secretary of Labor(who is straight, afaik).
He had no need to issue ANY proclamation on Stonewall, not to mention the brilliant one he did.
He had no need to issue the public apology to Frank Kameny that he did. (I knew of Kameny, but how many of you had even heard of him — and you are probably among the older half of the gay community.)
He could have ‘reconsidered’ DADT and decided it just needed fixing, not repeal, could have supported DOMA as ’states’ rights’ and left our equality to the states decisions.
In fact he could have done absolutely nothinbg for us, never mentioned us, and known that because ‘neutrality is still better than hosrtility’ and because every visible Republican candidate was sworn — because they needed the Christianists that really do make up their “base” — to roll back every bit of progress we have made, that he would still get almost every vote we had.
RebeccaH,
When did Obama reassure black voters that “conservative values” (by which I assume you mean the Bush-era support for a nationwide ban on SSM?) would be upheld? Please provide a link.
In other words ’since we’re already winning’ anything Obama dopes for us is just ‘following the tide’ and anything he is slow on — because he wants to make sure it sticks, and because he has a couple of minor things also on his plate like two wars, changing the health care situation, and keeping the economy from collapsing in ways that could make 1932 look good — shows he is our enemy.
Calvinball anyone? Or just “Heads he loses, tails he loses.”
A country in which only a dozen states *lack* DOMAs — many of them passed by citizen referenda — is one in which 50% of the country will have gay marriage? William, I feel safe in guessing that you don’t live in East Texas, southern Virginia, or any other part of the country where your neighbors would provide all the evidence necessary of an ongoing lack of support for same-sex relationships.
Hey, if you think it’s going to happen so easily, why don’t you pick a state that currently has a DOMA and set yourself to getting it reversed democratically? (I.e. not overridden by the courts, which is how you end up with Prop. 8s.) I’ll even send money and provide whatever support I can. Go for Texas and I can really help. I mean, if it’s so easy, surely you can do it.
“The Republicans can’t sustain a fililibuster’ is a demonstration that it is you that need to learn about politics. We Democrats may have 60 votes, finally — assuming that Kennedy and Byrd are healthy enough to get to the floor — some people doubt that Kennedy will ever be able to vote again and there is no ‘proxy’ voting in the Senate — but that includes the likes of Bayh, both Nelsons, Landrieux, Lincoln, etc, the “Blue dogs” who are not automatic votes in a system that is far from Parliamentary.
“I wish the folks who claim that Bush was such a good friend to the LGBT community would explain what evidence they base that upon…”
I’d love to see this too. Because the more you hear it, the more you get the impression that a significant percentage of gay men are Republicans…You know, because all of those Republican legislatures and governors have done so much to add rights at the state level…
What happened to the firece urgency of now? He has the votes now. The way the jobs numbers are going we are going to lose seats in 2010. Probably not control but our majority will be reduced and Obama will go all conservative in the run up to re-election remember 1996. The year Clinton signed DOMA, the most discrimintory federal bill passed in the last 40 years. I remember it, I am reminded daily in fact.
As far as Sullivan, yeah he is a brilliant man, a powerful voice, I agree. The irony is he may end up back in Britain due to the President’s careful consideration. Millions of Americans are waiting and starting to have serious doubts.
There is an old psychiatric joke about the patient who insisted he was dead. After trying everything else, the doctor asked him “Do dead men bleed?”
“Of course not” replied the patient.
The doctor then took a pin and jabbed him and pointed the the drop of blood.
The patient replied, “Well, what do you know, dead men DO bleed.”
The relevance should be obvious.
Yes, things could move more quickly. They always can. But there is a difference in approach that I think we, as a community committed to LGBT equality, should take in critiquing a pro-LGBT president who is doing things that advance our efforts as opposed to how we should approach a president taking steps that oppose our efforts.
I am aware of the implication of his post. But, though he might disagree with our assessment, I appreciate his directing his readers to a voice of that disagreement.
I wonder how many of our more erratic commenters are in fact ‘his readers’ come to deliberately cause trouble. Some of you are sincere, I know, but there are just too many to be completely credible.
Or perhaps your paranoia is just rubbing off on me.
Yay racism & xenophobia!
Where do you get that Obama said this:
Obama has appointed gay people to important policy and decision-making roles.
What policy impact has letting Warren talk at the inauguration had?
Mike, your comments about Trinity are completely false. I would direct you to this article from The Washington Blade:
“Dick Cheney is a markedly bigger friend to the LGBT community than Obama has been or shows any indication of being.”
Did Cheney oppose Prop. 8? If so, please provide the link to coverage of his doing so.
agreed. keep up the pressure; the cause needs to remain visible. but I won’t consider his actions ineffective when we are only 6 months in!! the man is just a man, and this fight has to happen in every conversation, in every city, everyday. I take issue with those that expect their gov’t to provide civil rights. WE have to demand it for ourselves and others, because “we hold these truths to be self-evident”, and not granted from on high. challenge our system, our culture, our philosophy, each other, but let us maintain out faith in humanity. in making personal attacks or in doubting the motives of others, of ourselves, we embark on a fool’s errand.
In June, the Supreme Court elected not to hear a challenge to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (it was a terrible case with which to challenge it anyway). One of the reasons they decided not to hear it was that the Obama administration had, directly connected to the appeals court ruling on that case, issued a brief to the Court stating that DADT “is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.”
After that, the White House could have created a Commission to look into DADT, or could have issued an order removing it, or could have made a statement that would encourage Congress to do something useful… but instead, the White House stood by its brief, and by the firings of nearly 300 GLBTQ servicemembers since Obama took office.
You can probably find the brief somewhere on the White House website, but it’s also available in the archives of most mainstream news outlets, the Palm Center, and innumerable queer news outlets.
Also, Obama is, I think, a United Church of Christ guy (in terms of his broader denomination, although I could be wrong about this), and the UCC has a history of being EXTREMELY queer-supportive, even to the point of ordaining out trans folk, out gay folk, etc.
That said, though, Mike is right. Unless the GLBTQ community does something to help itself, nothing is going to change. There are too many apologists (a lot of folks like me, working for actual change, but…).
I’m still not clear where Obama himself said repealing DADT would undermine “cohesion” and “discipline” in the military.
Stop distorting things.
Rafe, I’ve written about and read the briefs in the DADT case. As I noted at the time, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network — the group organized around helping LGBT military servicemembers — also was opposed to seeing this case in the Supreme Court.
As to Obama actions, since the Court declined to hear the appeal, Obama has spoken out about the importance of repealing DADT. He also has, per Defense Secretary Gates, had at least one conversation himself with Gates — in addition to ongoing staff work — about DADT and, specifically, the letter from 77 members of Congress about DADT.
Regardless of all that, could you please point me to where Obama has been “saying that a fix of DADT will undermine ‘cohesion’ and ‘discipline’ in the military”?
Although I am more than open to debate, please try and remain civil in your comments.
Yikes. I’m outta here!
Aww, I do hope you return!
Haven’t people noticed how, from McCain’s “Hail Sarah” pass — if not before — the Republican Party has been self-destructing and losing supporters on issue after issue. There hasn’t seemed to be a week where another Republican County Chairman has been caught distributing racist literature. The Congressional Republicans are becoming a farce with their phony solutions that the country rejects. The Republican Party is becoming — in people’s eyes, the party of Limbaugh, Cheney (still with an approval rating below 20%), Palin (before the fall), and Michelle Bachman.
And every scandal drives more people from center-right to the center, drives the center leftwards, and causes people who were backers of the fallen to wonder how much they had been misled. (Hypocrisy revealed can be a strong way of challenging certainty.)
Yes. Obama’s moved slowly on the Headline issues — and done nothing but good on the Page 26 ones — because he needed and expected that self-destruction. Why give his enemies a rallying point, throw them a lifeline that they could use to keep from falling off the cliff.
Well, they’ve pretty much fallen. And the fact that they stayed tied to Ensign, Sanford and Palin helped as they already are in the water and drowning. (Next to go? I’d predict Haley Barbour and his ties to the CofCC — the successor to the old White Citizens’ Councils.)
Now he is much freer to move, and I predict, as I said in a comment Chris was so kind as to quote in his post, that the Pride Proclamation will be the start of slow, inexorable, and most importantly, successful progress on every issue that matters to us.
(And the irony remains that, were Obama really against us, the steady drumbeat of slander so many of the dittoheads seemed determined to throw at him would give him the perfect opportunity to tell us to go f*ck ourselves. But he does support us — and knows any cause gathers a few nuts — so even we can’t stop him from helping us.)
Peter,
Agreed. I’ve been offering friendly wagers to the Obama-haters on whether ENDA, a DOMA repeal or a DADT repeal will have his signature into law by the end of his first term. So far, none of them want to put their money where their mouths are. I am unsurprised; it’s a lot cheaper to BS on the internet than to risk some $$$.
Peter, HI! So good to see you on here! I’ll drop you an e-mail …
More knee-jerk “they’re black people, so they must be bigots” from MikeinSC.
PG,
Obviously — although Clinton signed DADT and DOMA into law and Bush supported the FMA — Obama’s support for repealing DOMA and DADT and opposition to the FMA means that he’s the President that those supporting LGBT equality should view with the most suspicion and assumption of bad-faith.
You know, it’s hard to see why I even have to make an argument when the plain facts to date are on my side.
He’s not moving on your issues. If and when he does, you can tell me I’m wrong. I have a strong feeling that 2012 and 2016 will come without that happening, but maybe.
Fascinating, and so many misstatements that I am going to have to break my reply in pieces. Maybe the best place to start, simply because it shows your confusion the best, is your continual use of ‘veto-proof’ majority.
A veto — sorry to the rest of you for 4th grade civics — is when a Congress passes a bill and the President refuses to sign it and returns it to Congress. At that point the Congress may revote, and if the bill gets a 2/3 majority, it passes despite the Presidential veto. Therefore, a ‘veto-proof majority’ is a 2/3 vote on the original bill, assuming no one who supports it changes their mind. 2/3 of the Senate is 67. 2/3 of the House is 292. If this were relevant, there isn’t a ‘veto-proof majority’ of Democrats. (No president can have a ‘veto-proof majority’ because it refers to a number of people who will vote AGAINST the President. (Or it could be said that a president can have a minority assuring that a veto will be upheld, but that’s just 34 senators or 146 House members.)
All of which is irrelevant unless the Congress passes a bill which Obama vetoes, and not even the most ardent arguers of the ‘false friend’ position have suggested that Obama would go that far. (If he did, you’d see me at the White House gates faster than someone who lived two blocks away, and as a rule I never leave Brooklyn.)
What you are trying to say is that he has a ‘filibuster-proof’ majority, which is true only if every Democrat votes with him (and the two ailing giants are able to make it in to vote).
Second, just to clear away the more fragrant underbrush, we’ve discussed the myths about DOMA so often that you just have to go to the home page and start reading anything from the past two weeks. No, Presidents DON’T routinely refuse to support legislation they disagree with. It happens very rarely, and only when the law is clearly Unconstitional. He did NOT compare homosexuality to incest. But Chris — and Nan Hunter, and Laurence Tribe — have destroyed these myths already. Let’s take the rest of your nonsense in a separate comment.
As for blacks, the fact is that Christian sects that are Conservative oppose gay rights more strongly than average, less educated and poorer people likewise, and blacks have a higher percentage of Baptists and similar denominations, and are poorer and less educated than the average. If you can show me a survey that ‘corrects’ for these factors and has enough participants to be statistically relevant, I’ll listen. Until then your comment is simply racism.
(Btw, nobody condemns ‘Eastern Europeans’ who support some of the most vicious and violent homophobes as ‘representing a group’ or Koreans, many of whom follow some rather wild versions of Christianity. But blacks, oh, they are just ‘all alike’ it seems. Pfui!
But your biggest absurdity is your political statement. You pose as a Libertarian, but libertarians don’t make the distinction between courts and legislatures you do.
But the you try to argue for us to ‘give the Republicans a chance. Well, I might consider that, if their national platform — and so much more offensively in their state platforms — they did not declare their opposition to our rights. I might consider that if they would publicly reject the backing of those religious groups that are foremost in attacking us and work hardest to prevent us from getting our rights — and in many cases would rob us of the rights we have and even overturn Lawrence.
Instead these groups are the core of the Republican base, and most Republicans support — at least verbally — and are supported by these religious groups.
I’ll consider it when an openly gay non-incumbent runs as a Republican for a major office — one which he has a chance to win, not a district like mine where no Republican stands a chance — and has the wholesale — and visible — support of his party.
Here are a list of people named as possible Republican Presidential candidates. I’m sure it is incomplete, I’m doing this off the top of my head on a busy night, so if you have suggestions, please give them (I am naming the scandalous threesome as if the scandals never happened, jut to make my point):
Romney
Huckabee
Boehner
Cantor
Gingrich
Palin
Sandford
Barbour
Ensign
Pawlenty
Which of those, or what person I overlooked would be even likely not to directly move to curtail our rights?
Repubkicans aren’t afraid to speak up because we reject them — and, in fact, we do support gay-friendly Republicans if we can find them. We don’t support Republicans in general because it isn’t that they don’t speak up for us. They speak up AGAINST us.
MikeinSC, you assumed that because Obama’s church was predominately black that it must be opposed to homosexuality. That’s bigoted. If you don’t understand that your assuming what is true of the majority of a group (black church-goers) MUST be true of every member of that group (Rev. Wright), you are unsurprisingly an example of a man who embodies a quality that he doesn’t know how to define. Also unsurprising that you don’t acknowledge your error. Indeed, I bet you’ll continue to propagate the lie, because it’s easier than understanding that what may be true of the majority of a group is not true of every individual within it.
“Cheney has come out in favor of states deciding if gays should marry.”
That’s what Prop. 8 was: the people of California deciding if gays should be able to marry. Politicians like Obama said that Californians should vote against it. Politicians like Cheney are apparently indifferent to the outcome. Cheney is opposed to courts’ declaring a constitutional right to SSM. He thinks each state should decide it by a democratic vote. So far, democratic votes in most states have gone in favor of state-level DOMAs. If there is no leadership saying that DOMAs are wrong (as Obama said, and as Cheney never has said), then we have to wait for the slow process of people’s changing their minds instead of being rallied by leadership to change.
“anybody who will simply refer to me as a bigot because I notice that the Dems have done an amazing amount of nothing for this community?”
You were called a bigot because you assume that black people are a monolithic entity that thinks with a single Borg mind, such that you never have to check on what an individual black person thinks because you assume you already know. And when your error is pointed out to you, you ignore the appearance of facts that contradict your assumptions. That’s bigoted.
“Presidents have, historically, had few qualms opposing a law in court.”
Really? Then why did Bush have his DOJ defend McCain-Feingold’s constitutionality, even though Bush himself had publicly stated doubts about the law’s constitutionality?
“He has a veto proof majority.”
The assumption that everyone with a “D” after her name thinks with a single Borg mind isn’t racist, but it’s still stubbornly stupid. Obama doesn’t own the Democratic senators any more than Bush I owned the Republican senators, even on what should have been the simple matter of confirming a Supreme Court nominee (Justice Thomas got “nays” from Jeffords and Packwood.)
Want to take up the wager I’ve been offering to everyone of y’all who is convinced that nothing will happen? If Obama doesn’t get to sign one of these — ENDA; a repeal of DOMA; a repeal of DADT — I give you $100. If he signs any one of them, you give me $100. How about it?
I just need to ask this question – Obama believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. Although he was against banning gay marriage in CA, he is not “for” gay marriage.
Do you think he is really against gay marriage or if it is all part of the 8 year cycle as well?
I am also saddened to see how many people put their faith in politicians and twist and turn themselves trying to rationalize their motives and actions . Sullivan’s comments about the community organizer who “cajoles” and Obama wanting “deep structural change” are nothing short of sick jokes.
Deep structural change ?? I am a straight conservative and i believe in gay marriage and repealing DOMA and DADT (through legislation of course) – there have NEVER been so many straight allies for gay community issues than NOW. And we are talking about “deep structural change” ??
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120764/conservatives-shift-favor-openly-gay-service-members.aspx
But this is what happens when known boosters like Sullivan want to rationalize Obama’s failings. But please – dont show yourself to be so ignorant of what is happening around you.
58% of conservatives back openly gay members in the military – hows that for “deep change” ?
The same President who asks Congress to support trillion dollar deficits, nationalized health care, cap and trade somehow is looking for “deep structural change” for DADT and DOMA !
Bob Gates now says that DADT should be more humane – his version of “humanity” ! – no should maliciously out a gay member ! Wow, basic decency is what passes for humane.
There are people who sleep – and those who pretend to sleep. You sure as hell cannot wake up the pretenders.
Yeah, keep telling that to yourself – he supports us – he is fighting for us !! YAAY !!!
He is the same guy who is against gay marriage – and wont do a damned thing about DOMA or DADT.
Get a clue – he is not “against” you – you are not big enough of a political force to be worried about. He is throwing you the crumbs just like any good progressive would. In other words he does not care about any consequences of doing anything meaningful – he KNOWS that there are people like you and a million others who will lap up any explanations.
Eight Year Cycle ! Yeah and Santa Claus actually lives in the North Pole.
Well, your entire post explains in nutshell while the LGBT community is hopelessly stuck with the Democrats.
As a conservative Republican, I do agree that religious conservatives in the GOP have been hostile to gay rights. No denying that.
But your question about which GOP politican would not move to “curtail your rights” is just boilerplate rhetoric – you conveniently left out Huntsman who happens to be from the most conservative state in the Union and is for civil unions.
Putting Romney and Pawlenty up there shows how little you know the GOP and how much you want to paint the GOP as one monolithic gay hating bloc.
Is it any wonder you have made ZERO progress on any of the substantial issues ?
Btw, check out this poll – a majority of those gay hating Republicans now seem to be open to gay military members serving openly
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120764/conservatives-shift-favor-openly-gay-service-members.aspx
70% of blacks voted for Propositon 8 in California – and so did a majority of Latinos – pointing this out does not make any one a bigot.
And you have NO IDEA of how homosexuality is viciously attacked in the black community – conservative or otherwise.
Please stop defending the indefensible and admit it – you have fewer allies in the minority communities.
Do you really want to waste your time on a Republican ‘concern troll’ who keeps on referring to ‘your issues’? Even if he took your bet, wouldn’t his paying off be as illusory as his concern?
Let me try the question about how Obama feels about same-sex marriage. I believe he is working his way through it on a personal level, as many straight people who had never really had to question themselves about it are.
However, what he would do as President is different. I do believe he wants it to be handled on a state to state basis, but with protections for marriages in the whole country. Thus:
I am sure he would push for and sign a repeal of DOMA.
He has already shown he will accept government benefits going to legally married same-sex couples.
I believe he would get behind, encourage, and sign a law extending the ‘full faith and credence’ provision to marriage — which would be my own way of dealing with the subject.
Were Congress to make progress on a bill allowing same-sex marriage anywhere, I do not think he would work for its passage, but if it did pass, I have no doubt he would sign it.
Ah, yes, yet another Republican concern troll. Welcome aboard. Now maybe if you are willing to mention any facts, we might think you worth arguing with.
Jon Huntsman — who is less against us than most Republicans — is also serving as Obama’s Ambassador to China. I do not think the current Republican Party would pay any attention to him.
I know of no pro-gay action Pawlenty has taken. If you do, please enlighten us.
As for Romney, you show your contempt for us by even mentioning him. We know of his speeches when he ran — in gay friendly Massachussets — against ted Kennedy. AND we know his speeches when he ran for the Presidency in the gay-hostile Republican party. And we know enough not to believe a single word he said.
Thank you, Mr. Republican, for telling me what i don’t know about the black community. (I’m glad you are so sure I am white, btw. I am, but you had no way of being sure about that.)
You don’t know who I am, where I’ve worked or lived, or who I have talked to in my life, so thank you for showing your arrogant ignorance.
But that’s the key of a true troll. They always tell us things we have known for years — or try and tell them they aren’t true, and they love to presume who we are and what we know.
Nagarajan Sivakumar,
1) No one said that noting the racial breakdown of the Prop. 8 vote makes anyone a bigot. It was Mike’s assumption that a black church in Chicago must be virulently anti-gay — when in fact Rev. Wright was on the cutting edge of outreach to the LGBT community — that was bigoted.
2) Do you not consider your own ethnicity to be part of “the minority communities”? The majority of Indians voted against Prop. 8. If it had been left to Indians, Californians would still have the right to SSM. I am embarrassed to see someone who (judging by the name he comments under) is himself a member of a minority community claiming that “the minority communities” are a monolithic bloc all voting against gay rights.
Chris and Felicia
I am not deliberately distorting things. In this administration, I believe that the President works with his cabinet members, and with a lot of other folks, to get a lot of things done. I believe he is in charge, unlike the last president. Thus I believe that if his administration issues a brief stating something, he is probably involved in some level.
Whether you want to call that semantics or not is up to you. The fact is that if he wanted to say, “That brief says things that I think are hurtful and counterproductive, and here are the steps I am taking to make the change,” which he certainly could have done after the DOMA brief or the DADT brief, the queer community would welcome that.
He has had several opportunities to show specific moments of leadership on these issues, and he hasn’t done it. I don’t think he is our enemy, but I am utterly unconvinced that he is our friend, or that we should have to wait.
Yes he certainly has. I don’t think the man himself is a homophobe. I believe that he is too cautious, which is not the same thing.
As to Rick Warren, that obviously has nothing to do with policy — but it has a lot to do with the GLBTQ community’s increasing feelings of confusion and betrayal.
Rafe,
Apparently you missed Obama’s statement (covered at this blog, BTW): “I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add, we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law.”
If you think Obama or even Attorney General Holder has time to read every filing made by the Department of Justice, you live in a fantasyland. Even at mid-size law firms, no single partner reads ALL the filings.
I did not say that I thought Holder or POTUS read everything. I said that I felt that in an administration with an intelligent, high-functioning leader, there were probably not minions putting words in his mouth like in the previous administration.
As for living in a fantasyland, what? I have been reading this blog, and this blogger’s Twitter feed, for quite some time, and only commented because I felt that there was space here for a small critique on whether cautious is real or not real. I haven’t been calling anyone names, I haven’t been hurling obscenities (in general, or at anyone), and I have not condescended to anyone.
In terms of whether I missed Obama’s statement (on this blog and many others that I also liked and respected), no, I didn’t. But upholding existing law does not have to be the same as doing nothing to change existing law.
I am very disappointed by the unwillingness to discuss whether or not Obama is REALLY going to help us (yes, us — I’m gay & trans). It seems as if many folks here are so busy apologizing for Obama (a temptation I can certainly understand) that you can’t hear or see that so far he has said a lot (mostly only to us, not to the larger constituency) and done very little.
Maybe his slow plan will work. But I don’t understand why we should have to take that risk.
Hello again! Thanks!
I really like and agree with your post. I appreciate Obama’s style. The knot this country is tied in right now has so little breathing room the only choices to me seem to be to just blast our way through it, damaging much, or to sit down, breathe a lot, and piece by piece loosen it up. This presidency is still so new. I don’t understand what in the world people think ANYONE could do overnight, or why caution and care is seen as malicious intent.
Got intimidated by the anger I saw here! Obviously!
I understand why everyone’s pissed off. The Bush years left my family with challenges to be sure. But hey, Mr. Bush and his nightmarish dance helped EMBLAZE the mantra “This too Shall Pass!” on my very being.
PG, even if the concern troll were worth notiing, he has turned into a full-fledged troll, and has achieved his full object, by getting us to get off into the question of ‘minority’ — which is simply nonsense. As I’ve asked before, show me the stats controlled for religion, income, and level of education and then we’ll talk.
But even if you show a slightly larger proportion of blacks supporting Prop 8, this does nothing to prove your basic, erroneous point: that Obama’s supposed re;uctance on gay rights comes from a fear that he will alienate the black community.
Now I realize our Dear Republican Psuedo-Friends have never ‘gotten’ — either in the sense of understanding or in the sense of wining the votes of — most minority groups. (For blacks, see ‘Steele, Michael’ or ‘Swann, Lynn’ to see how they get things wrong. And, btw, the ‘overwhelming stampede of women to support a female VP’ didn’t exactly happen, did it Sarah Smiles?)
There are at least three reasons why Obama won the ovberwhelming majority of blacks that he did, and will retain them:
First, he IS black, and yes, they symbolism of that was important to many blacks — and whites, including myself. And, y’know something, he ain’t gonna get any whiter if he supports us.
Secomnd, he was a Democrat, and thus NOT a member of the party which has been collecting racists since Nixon’s Southern Strategy. And while Dubya (who, with all his faults was NOT a racist) tried to change this, the result still was that — in the period between Obama’s nomination and election — I don’t believe a single three day period went by without a different Republican state or local official being caught distributing vilely racist e-mails or letters, in most cases without being disciplined by the Party.
Third, because he shared most of their values. (Even saying that is almost racist, but certainly there are some values that are predominant in any community.) But most urban blacks are probably more anti-gun than Obama, might be more opposed to the death penalty, etc. Yet these differences on lesser issues didn’t send them running to the Republicans.
Blacks might vote slightly more heavily against a specifically pro-gay initiative, but it isn’t a ‘deal-breaker’ for them. (And pro-gay blacks in Congress — as almost every one is — don’t get supported less heavily than candidates who are silent on the subject — I know of no homophobic gay Congressmen but there might be a couple.)
So here’s another argument that crashes.
And one further point worth thinking about. It is true that many conservatine, biblical literalist Christian communities — black or white — struggle with the prohibition against homosexuality in the Bible. (Many of us who were raised in this type of environment — I wasn’t — have spoken of their own struggles with it.)
And yes, this has led to homophobia in the black churches — and much more in the similar white churches. But who are the leaders of the homophobes? Whose faces do you think of? Dobson, Perkins, Wildmon, Phelps? There may be some prominent leaders who are black (American black, I am aware of the strong homophobia in black Africans like Bishop Akinola and Pastor Muthee) but I can’t think of any.
Blacks may preach homophobia, but they don’t join homophobic movements, because they are aware of the many homophobes who are ‘equal-opportunity’ bigots and hate — and speak against — blacks (and Jews and Muslims)as strongly as against gays. (Jesse Helms, Tony Perkins, etc.)
Okay, i was wrong. i thought the influx of the Pajama trolls would be bad for us, but Mike and his brethren have — it seems — done more to bring us together than anything else. (I believe, but can’t prove, that if there were lurkers out there on the fence between Chris and Aravosis, seeing the sort of argument the SC Fog Machine makes moved them more to our side.)
Again his length requires a reply, but it sometimes feels like I am back arguing evolution with creationists or the existence of god or gods with conservative Christians. The same old arguments keep coming up again and again.
So, once again:
Obama did NOT compare homosexuality to incest or pedophilia;
The DOMA litigation did not meet the very narrow circumstances in which the President may make an exception to the general obligation of the Department of Justice to argue in favor of a law duly passed by Congress — whether they agree with it or not.
The real danger — my pet argument — in the DOMA case is of a Scalia-led “Runaway Court” declaring ALL gay marriages Unconstitutional. By submitting a perhaps stronger than necessary brief in its favor, Obama may have lessened the chance of that happening.
More on specific points later, if the rest of you haven’t covered them, but domestic duties are intervening.
Let’s try and deal with Mike’s pathetic attempt to equate Democrats and Republicans. He says i ignore those Democrats who ‘loathe gay rights.’ Who, dear sir, are you referring to? There are a few Democrats who were elected in usually strongly Republican districts (Minnick in Idaho, Shuler, and the like) who might not be pro-gay rights, but none of them can be called prominent except perhaps for Gene Taylor of Mississippi — and I don’t know his position on gay matters. But can you name one prominent gay leader who has spoken — or acted — in such a way that hints that they ‘loathe gay rights’?
When we condemn DOMA rightfully, we should remember that it was passed by Bill Clinton partially as a way of heading off Republican efforts towards a Constitutional Amendment — which was not introduced until 2002, but which had been discussed frequently. And yes, at the time when gay marriage was a new and shocking idea to many people, it was a way of taking it out of the campaign.
Two points to wrap this up for now. You laughingly claim that the reason that no out gays run as non-incumbent Republicans is that they’d be attacked by gay groups. Well gay groups are hardly monolithic, but I recall no major attacks on Steve Gunderson after he came out, and major Republican attacks from his state party and a homophobic primary challenge.
I don’t know of gay attacks on the far more conservative Jim Kolbe.
And finally — for now — again I remind people that Republicans are not just opposed to same-sex marriage — as, supposedly, Obama is — but they are opposed to civil unions, to gays in the military, to schoolbooks mentioning gays in a favorable light, etc. Some even support reversing Lawrence and no Democrats of any visibility supports those.
You yourself used Jon Huntsman as an example of a Republican favorable to gay rights. I entirely agree he is among the most progressive of Republicans in this area. His Progressive Republican stance? To oppose gay marriage but accept and support civil unions. And he’s just about the best you can do.
Rafe,
Your exact words were: “Thus I believe that if his administration issues a brief stating something, he is probably involved in some level.”
I am explaining to you that the president does not get involved in DOJ brief-writing. Your belief that Obama “is probably involved in some level” therefore is incorrect. I am sorry if this sounds condescending, but you have erroneous beliefs about the president’s involvement in such matters.
The DOJ is working on literally hundreds of litigated matters at any one time, most of which require a constant stream of stipulations, motions, oppositions to motion, replies to the opposition to the motion, etc. The president isn’t even aware of the existence of most of these. The DOJ is not faxing 50-page briefs to Obama while he’s meeting with the prime minister of Russia in order to get his thoughts on the arguments they’re using, much less the precedents they’re citing.
The words in a DOJ brief defending a Congressional statute are not meant to be words in Obama’s mouth, any more than the words in a brief I write for a corporation can be attributed to the chairman of the board for that corporation.
“But upholding existing law does not have to be the same as doing nothing to change existing law.”
Which presumably is why Obama said, in the statement I just quoted, “And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law.” I do not know how to make this any plainer. What language would satisfy you here?
I think Obama really is going to help on LGBT issues, which is why I keep putting up money on his doing so before the end of his first term. And it appears that most people secretly agree with me, which is why none of them will take the bet. I do not consider it productive to discuss whether he will help, if the discussion is based on erroneous beliefs about the nature of the DOJ. I think it is great for laymen to learn more about the law, but it gets rather frustrating to have a discussion if the laymen stubbornly insist that their beliefs must be true when they are not.
I have a lot of issues where I worry about Obama’s commitment. For example, I am concerned that Obama will not insist on a public option in health care reform. But I do not assume, based on his first 6 months in office, that he’ll NEVER get anything done, that HE’S ABANDONED HELPING 45 MILLION UNINSURED AMERICANS, simply because nothing has happened on this issue yet. Lasting reform requires a durable consensus, which in turn requires time and patience.
Hi PG
I think in the end it boils down to semantics, not to whether this “layman” (interesting assumptions) gets it or not. President Obama has said a lot of things, and my point is not that I think he’s false — I think he has tremendous integrity and a strong belief in Right, not Might — but that I think he is too cautious. I stand by my statement that upholding extant law is not the same as doing nothing to change it — I’m challenging the President’s ACTIONS, not his COMMITMENT or his words.
I am not taking your bet not out of a secret belief, but because I would very much love to be wrong. And I agree with you in your concern about health care.
Generally, I think we want the same things — the “fierce advocate” we were promised, a realistic solution to the disasters inherited by Obama from the Bush administration, a health care system that actually functions for the benefit of real people, etc etc etc. Talking down to me just creates schisms — when our differences are, I think, largely semantic (and enhanced by your ongoing insistence that I am wrong & clinging to wrong beliefs, when what I am actually clinging to is my belief that he should move faster), that doesn’t help anyone.
what a tremendous disappointment.
Rafe,
It’s hardly an assumption when [it's clear from other information freely available on the Internet that you are not a lawyer (as edited, per request, to remove personal, though not private, information)]. If that’s incomplete and you’re actually admitted to the bar somewhere (but for some reason your name doesn’t show up on any of the bar registries), my apologies for assuming otherwise.
“Talking down to me just creates schisms — when our differences are, I think, largely semantic (and enhanced by your ongoing insistence that I am wrong & clinging to wrong beliefs, when what I am actually clinging to is my belief that he should move faster), that doesn’t help anyone.”
I don’t think it’s merely a matter of semantics for people to keep insisting that Obama was involved with the DOJ brief, despite the improbability that he ever saw it before it was filed with the court. Or for people to claim that Obama has said that removing DADT will reduce cohesion and discipline in the military. That’s what I have consistently taken issue with: your belief that anything said in the arguments made in a brief by the DOJ must represent Obama’s own words. If you cling to those beliefs, I’m going to keep trying to detach you from them, because it does not serve progress to cling to falsehoods.
I also wish that Obama would move faster on equality. I wish that he would do a lot of things. I don’t see how pretending that DOJ briefs represent Obama’s precisely worded thoughts on a subject helps advance any of my goals, though.
I guess I will have to reply to myself, since apparently I can’t reply to PG anymore.
I logged on to this discussion to discuss, not to be attacked.
[Edited out.]
I don’t even know you. I had heard a lot of really good things about Chris so I started looking at his blog, and I thought he had a lot of really good thoughts and ideas. I’m sorry that my disagreeing, mildly and apparently clumsily, required this much of your time to address.
Best,
Rafe
Mike is not so much clueless as deliberately causing trouble, and he wouldn’t be worth spending attention on. His ‘concern’ is obviously mendacious, and he has shown his sole object is stirring up our mistrust of Democrats that the Gay Rush Limbaugh is working ‘from the left.’
But it’s still worth combatting his arguments, because, while he is highly dubiously sincere, athers have heard them and sincerely believe rthem, and with any luck they will drop by and see how wrong they are.
I’ll admit it would be a tough pass to get by the Blue Dogs now.
Will it be easier after the 2010 elections and the Republicans make their likely (by historical precedent) gains?
Or will it be more difficult if delayed?
If the goal is to have something pass, then doing it when it would be least difficult seems like a good plan. Waiting until it will be more difficult doesn’t seem like a strategy for winning, but instead a strategy to keep the fight going for political gain.