IGF CultureWatch

Soon after Barack Obama earned his place in history last Tuesday, the praise from gay rights organizations was effusive. "This is the dawn of a new political era of hope and engagement in the life of this country," proclaimed the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "This election represents a paradigm shift," said Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.

One can understand why these organizations feel reason for celebration. The last eight years have seen the passage of more than 20 anti-gay state marriage amendments, an attempt by the President of the United States to write discrimination into the Constitution, and congressional foot-dragging on bills ranging from employment nondiscrimination to hate crimes. Barack Obama, meanwhile, supports everything on the gay rights agenda short of marriage equality.

But even as the state fights continue - with Wednesday's Connecticut court ruling opening the door to gay marriage there - at the federal level, the gay rights movement can expect to feel some serious cognitive dissonance in its enthusiasm for Obama. Even if our new President has a "mandate," with the economy in the tank, two ongoing wars and widespread demand for major new initiatives on health care and energy, gay rights are hardly a priority. Especially for a man who is politically strategic - or careful - to a fault, and will go to great lengths to avoid repeating the Clinton "don't ask, don't tell" debacle.

While Obama's success is on balance a good thing for gay rights, contrast that to what was lost on Tuesday. In California, thanks to the passage of Proposition 8, 18,000 already-married gay couples may lose that status and no gay person will be getting married in the country's most populous state for the foreseeable future. Same goes for Florida and Arizona, which also passed marriage amendments. In Arkansas, gay couples lost the right to adopt children. And it's worth noting that many of the voters in Obama's winning coalition, notably blacks, remain culturally conservative - and helped those referenda prevail.

Gay groups acknowledge the setbacks, but say they're outweighed by the legislation that will come with a President Obama and a Democratic Congress. The three major items they cite are a hate crimes statute that would punish anti-gay violence more harshly than other violent crimes, legislation to ban anti-gay employment discrimination and repeal of the law barring openly gay people from serving in the military.

All these bills are significant, but are they truly likely to get off the back burner, with so many other things at full boil? Perhaps. If so, would their passage trump anti-gay marriage amendments in three states? No. There are principled reasons for those considering themselves "pro-gay" to oppose hate crimes laws as they criminalize thought, not action. Nor is there evidence that they reduce anti-gay violence. Regarding employment discrimination, there are no reliable statistics determining the actual number of people who have been fired or denied a job because of their sexual orientation. And change isn't likely to come on gays in the military until the military leadership advises it. Moreover, during the campaign, John McCain said that he'd be open to a "review" of the policy should the brass recommend it.

In 1993, gays similarly welcomed Bill Clinton into office with much enthusiasm. Their fervent support was answered with the President's gays-in-the-military misstep, (the first misjudgment of the Clinton presidency), and was followed with his signing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

To avoid the disappointments of the Clinton era, gays should keep trying to win hearts and minds at the state level - without investing too much hope or energy in Obama. While the President-elect has spoken inclusively about gay people, he does not have a legislative record on gay rights and has displayed the same knack for political opportunism as our last Democratic President. Obama was more than happy to employ "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin in an attempt to win the votes of socially conservative blacks in the South Carolina Democratic primary. And while he nominally opposed Proposition 8 in California, that opposition consisted of nothing more than a letter sent to a gay Democratic group in San Francisco.

To be sure, having a President who speaks empathetically about gay people - and Obama has done this more than any presidential candidate in history - will, in and of itself, change the national tone on homosexuality. Obama will probably also hire a liaison to the gay community, a post that Clinton inaugurated and that President Bush left vacant, and invite gay leaders to the White House. All together, that may help tear down homophobia, the last acceptable societal prejudice. Indeed, the mere fact of having a black man in the White House may lessen Americans' anxiety when it comes to thinking about another minority. All these positive outcomes are possible, but last Tuesday's losses, and cold political reality, are too great for gays to get their hopes up.