It is starting to seem like a tautology that if the Obama administration is asked to weigh in on a question of gay rights, then it will come down on the wrong side.
It happened again last week.
Obama's Department of Justice crafted a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act that used all of the arguments of the anti-gay Right. Heterosexual marriages are "traditional," it said. Denying federal recognition to legal state marriages doesn't hurt anyone, it said. States don't have to recognize gay marriages performed by other states just like they don't have to recognize a marriage between an uncle and his niece, it said.
We do not have a "friend in the White House."
We do not have a "fierce advocate."
What we have is an enemy.
He is, sure, a wolf in sheep's clothing, wearing a glittering costume embroidered with "Hope," "Change" and empty promises. He is master of doublespeak, saying that he is against DOMA yet not protesting when a Bush-holdover presses a poison dagger of a marriage brief into our chests; he says he supports the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but has yet to issue a Stop-Loss order to keep hunted gays and lesbians in their military jobs.
Leave gay rights to the states, he says. Leave them to Congress.
Barack Obama is no longer hurting us with benign neglect. Barack Obama's administration is now actively attacking us.
If George W. Bush had responded this way to Don't Ask, Don't Tell and DOMA, we would be rising in the streets. We would be protesting in front of the White House.
Barack Obama is not our friend. He is not our fierce advocate. He is someone who used our vulnerability and hope to get elected.
Joe Solmonese, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote a beautiful letter to the White House expressing just this sense of betrayal. "I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones," he wrote.
Barack Obama has forgotten, perhaps, that we are human beings with families. He perhaps has made the erroneous assumption that we will wait our turn humbly, hats in hand, until he decides to be beneficent in the waning days of a second term.
We need to show him that we will not.
The world is a different place than it was five years ago or even six months ago. Establishment Republicans - Dick Cheney! Joe Bruno in New York! - are now coming out in favor of gay marriage. A majority of Americans favor the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Gay and lesbian civil rights are no longer a fringe issue. And gays and lesbians are no longer a minority who will be placated with hate crimes legislation in lieu of full and equal rights.
There will always be urgent issues competing for a President's attention. That's what being President is. But those other issues shouldn't make us back down. In fact, they should make us fight harder.
Health care? DOMA might make it impossible for our spouses to be our dependents in a federal health care program. The economy? Our families would certainly be better off if the money we paid to Social Security could go to our loved ones if we passed before they did. The war? America would have a stronger fighting force if it stopped ejecting perfectly qualified, long-serving soldiers just because they are gay.
We must stop giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. It is time to show him that we will not support a second term, that we will not support the Democratic Party, if this continues. We will not give a dollar of our money. We will not give an hour of our time.
We will Stonewall him and his administration. The time for being treated as the equal Americans we are has come, and we will not be pushed aside.
11 Comments for “It’s Time to Stonewall Obama”
posted by Jorge on
There will always be urgent issues competing for a President?s attention. That?s what being President is. But those other issues shouldn?t make us back down. In fact, they should make us fight harder.
Mmph. Yeah, this is very bad timing for a stonewalling campaign. Obama has a fair chance of scoring a grand slam in the very near future. Well maybe that’s too optimistic.
But I’m listening.
posted by TS on
Maybe I’m the last federalist. I keep saying this and I’ll say it again. The federal government should stop using DADT (which is in Obama’s sphere) and repeal DOMA (which it never should have passed because regulating marriage is not a consitutional power of the federal government, and not in Obama’s sphere.) Other than that, we have nothing to gain from the Feds or Obama. His job right now is to try to be FDR and convince Americans that he will heal the economy so they start spending again. I’m not stupid enough to believe it will work, but maybe my neighbors will be stupid enough to make it work. He doesn’t need us and we don’t need him. Let’s direct our energy toward education and breaking down the social barriers and misunderstandings that caused people to think it was a good idea to pass laws against us in the first place.
posted by TS on
add to my last sentence: in communities and certainly no bigger than states.
posted by Lynne on
Barack Obama is not our friend. He is not our fierce advocate. He is someone who used our vulnerability and hope to get elected.
Exactly right — he and the Democrats have been doing that to us for many decades now. They count on our fear and pain to make us compliant with money, time, and vote — and then to just back away into the corners again when they once again stab us in the back.
Time to stand up. It’s way past ridiculous.
posted by Bobby on
Check this out, CBS calls the gay community “far left” for complaining:
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/20090618122149.aspx
posted by Reynaldo on
What we need is a woman in the oval office, id bet you that Hillary would be at least somewhat good for equality (underline that).
posted by TS on
Actually, it would be stupid but internally consistent to say that plebiscites are the only valid form of democracy.
There are several ways I can tell this is not the case with these people.
-One, I presume that they support the system as it stands except when it doesn’t deliver the result they want, especially the politicians among them who would be wiped away by only subtle changes to the system.
-Two, they are currently raging against Obama, who was swept in by a plebiscite demanding the bigger government Obama spent his campaign promising. I know it’s hard for fiscal conservatives to understand this, but the masses only like the free market when times are good. When they go bad, they wouldn’t say it but what they want and what they will vote for is socialism.
-Three, they aren’t fooling me: all activists have a bad habit of being goal oriented. The only time they bother to praise or curse the means of government as they range from plebiscite to court is when they are or aren’t producing the results they want. E.G. The one-issue gay bloc.
posted by TS on
agak! I posted this on the wrong article. see the one that’s actually about plebliscites.
posted by Bobby on
You’re generalizing Jonathan Rauch, most conservative writers don’t mind if people vote on same-sex marriage or if the state legislator passes same-sex marriage because in the end the voters can reward or punish legislators based on how they vote.
“I know it’s hard for fiscal conservatives to understand this, but the masses only like the free market when times are good. When they go bad, they wouldn’t say it but what they want and what they will vote for is socialism.”
—What masses? According to the Pew research center most Americans disagree with Obama’s policies but like him as a person. Only the far left agrees with company bailouts, the stimulus package, closing Guantanamo, etc.
This country gives you the right to pursue happiness, but it does not guarantee it. Our bill of rights doesn’t say that we have the right to free health care, affordable housing and free education.
posted by Shawmut on
We might consider that forty years ago this coming Sunday, the ‘gay’ community struck out to stop government interference in our lives.
What an irony. We might do well to look at the various citations Bruce Bawer makes in his new book “Surrender, Appeasing..”. It seems that violence against gays has escalated in those very social democracies where gay freedoms were celebrated. Now we witness that liberalism was counterfeited and finessed to suit Islamist fundamentalists whose goals for gays is death, but to comment on that faith is a hate-crime.
posted by Patrick Mc on
“The government consists of a gang of men, exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for gaining and holding office. To attain this end, they seek out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten, that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction of the sale of stolen goods.”
~ H. L. Mencken