Blogs Jun 29, 2011 at 8:03 am

Comments

1
I love Andrew, but can't agree with him here. I can see where Obama might not pursue marriage equality in the same way as Cuomo. I can even see the defense of federalism (though having an interracial man born in 1961 talk about "states rights" is simply bizarre) though I don't see as cut and dried. But Andrew fails, and could be accused of being disingenuous, to take Obama to task for his dishonesty.

Let's call a spade a spade. No one seriously doubts that Obama has any actual problem with same sex marriage. If tomorrow he were Barack Obama, Chicago community organizer again, he'd march in Pride himself, his wife (and possibly older daughter) by his side. What is so infuriating is that he refuses to just come out and admit he supports gay marriage. Everyone, from homophobes to homosexuals, knows he does. All he accomplishes by avoiding the question is to appear to be politically manipuilative and slippery.

Most of us aren't asking for much, Mr. President (at least, not for now). We just want you to have the minimal courage to say what we all know you think. Just say "I support marriage equality for all". Tiny for you, huge for us. The white homophobes aren't voting for you, the black homophobes sure as hell aren't voting Republican and the gays+allies have a lot of money and political muscle with your name (potentially) on it. Fuck evolving. Speak up!
2
I don't see why the LGBT community doesn't take a stronger states rights position. The potential of DOMA or even something being written into the constitution should be horrifying enough.

An example of this is Rick Perry. He says he's personally against gay marriage, but has no problem with a state making it legal. He does have a problem with the federal government saying who can marry who, however.
3
I trust this president to do the best thing. He has proven himself deserving of that trust time and time again. And he has delivered for the LGBT communtity. I want him to get re-elected. That is my only priority at this point. I've waited a lifetime for a president like this.
4
Hey Dan, maybe you can answer me this: Obama says - and I truly believe he believes this - that things worked the way they should in New York; that Marriage Equality is a State's Rights issue and is to be decided by the states.

If that's the case, then what about binational gay couples? Can the individual states recognize US citizenship of the international partner? Does that subvert the federal citizenship rules or not? And if so, and if Marriage Equality is a State's Rights issue, then what say does the Federal Government have in any Domestic Unions ("marriage" as a civil entity) at all?

Does Obama advocate the total nullification of Federal benefits for Conjoined Couples or does he recognize that the Federal government does play a role in Domestic Unions and equality can't be gained through only the states themselves?
5
Bullshit.

Bammerz' problem is that he doesn't actually lead--not on anything remotely progressive anyway. Every advance by the GLBT community has been in spite of him, not because of him.

He has led the way on refusing to prosecute torture, bombing brown people into oblivion, blowing Wall Street and giving RepubliKKKans everything that they want in budget negotiations, so there's that.
6
Much as I get annoyed with Andrew's conservative pandering and that I also think it would not blow things up for Obama to say "I personally support marriage equality," the legal issue outlined here is actually correct. Knock out DOMA as the unconstitutional horror it is, and then work at the state level -- without DOMA, gay marriage follows the EXACT same path as interracial marriage... EXACTLY. Which is why the batshit crazies are so intent on protecting DOMA.
7
3 your faith in your god is so precious
8
What you said, BEG.
9
If politics is the art of the possible, then a good politician is one who finds what has a good chance of working and follows it through. Andrew's point here is that Obama may be doing exactly that by defending states' rights in a climate in which there's still a lot of danger that the wrong viewpoint will be enshrined as federal law or even incorporated into the constitution -- making things more difficult to change in the future and, in practice, slowing down the process of change.

I can agree with him on that. Let there be more and more states with marriage equality, so that the strawman argument that this will have bad consequences can be shown to be wrong in practice.

Then this thing could be defeated state by state, like old laws about adultery or sodomy. Or even lead to a Supreme Court decision. Anyways, there would be a solid base of arguments to point on, of examples and situations and legal precedents that no reasonable person could deny. The final result would be all the more solid.
10
I respect Andrew, and legally he's right but he's missing the forest for the trees. This is about what leadership means, pure and simple.

Andrew's right: A President's leadership looks different from a Governor's. As President Obama can't snap his fingers and nationalize marriage equality, but his leadership—his vocal support for the issue, independent of any single piece of legislation—can provide encouragement and political shelter to Democrats and Republicans in legislatures and statehouses across the country and to Congress on DOMA. His power is in his ability to speak, and he chooses not to.

The corner he's caught in is exactly summed up in the title of this post: "People know a fierce advocate when they see one." The corner he's caught in is his own failure to speak what he can no longer plausibly deny he believes. As a result his hesitancy to be a leader on a civil rights issue of national importance is now glaringly visible.
11
And let's not give him too much credit for leadership on DOMA that was and still is just as passive as his "evolution":

For months—years?—his Justice Department defended DOMA in multiple federal lawsuits with the same disgustingly offensive arguments used by the Bush administration. His administration only changed tack and dropped its defense of the law when lawsuits came along (also in NY, if memory serves) requiring his administration to take a stand on whether gays are entitled to the same "suspect class" protections as women and racial minorities.

When he & Eric Holder realized they couldn't have it both ways anymore, they finally announced they would no longer defend DOMA. Sound familiar?

Last time I checked, DOMA is still law, and Obama hasn't made any movement on an actual repeal. Am I wrong?
12
@3, so you've "waited a lifetime" for a President who starts illegal wars, who's killed hundreds of innocent men, women, and children overseas for no reason, who ignores the crimes of powerful politicians while prosecuting whistleblowers at the highest rates in decades, who denies medical marijuana to sick and dying people, who appoints donors and lobbyists to positions of power, who increases state secrets to prevent victims of the war on terror from compensation, and who can't bring himself to say that homosexuals should be allowed to marry each other?

I mean, I understand keeping one's expectations low, but that's pretty extreme.
13
I can understand that there are perfectly good reasons for him to not try to handwave marriage equality into law. But I caught part of the whole thing on CNN, and he won't endorse gay marriage "because he didn't want to make news on that today"? When we've got Republicans pushing for gay marriage because "fuck it, it's the right thing to do" (paraphrasing)?
14
Discussion aside, I'd be interested in knowing just exactly what a patchwok is...

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