Does Obama Really Care About Gay Rights?

The conservative blogger, big pink elephant, linked to a blog post of mine from a few months ago where I stated:

By the way, some people squibble about Obama’s support of civil unions over gay marriage. I agree that it’s awful that he supports separate but equal and won’t take a stand for our full rights with marriage. But I think Obama actually supports gay marriage. He is making the politicallty safe maneuver of supporting full rights with civil unions and banking on the fact that 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 years from now the Supreme Court will declare that you can’t have to separate but equal institutions.

Tabitha points out the problem of deluding oneself in assuming Obama is going to support marriage equality. She’s right, and I don’t really believe anymore that Obama secretly supports full marriage equality. As I explained on her post:

Tabitha, you’re right that no one is ever a 100% match with every issue. Obama, though, does support most of my #1 issue which is LGBT rights (equal federal rights and protections, passing EDNA, repealing DADT, adoption rights). But gay marriage is not totally black and white because of the “civil unions” option. Obama is in the gray area on that since he argues that gays and lesbians should have all the rights and protection of marriage, he just wants to call it “civil unions” and not “marriage.” And for me, I want the rights, protections and responsibilities and not necessarily the word. I’d be happy for the federal government to classify my marriage as a “civil union” as long as it meant I had the same federal rights as any other married couple…

This is pretty much my stance on the whole Obama and Gays thing right now. I want equality for all the legal stuff and I’m flexible on the language and semantics. I would obviously prefer just to call it marriage but whatever. If the feds don’t want to call my marriage a marriage in the law books, I don’t care. If that makes religious people more comfortable with it, that is a totally acceptable compromise to me. And, really, once gays are “civilly unionized” we can call them marriages.  Eventually you’ll have so many union’d gays referring to it as “marriage” it won’t fucking matter anymore. Everyone will call it marriage and, eventually, the population at large will see them as exactly that.  And most likely after a decade of this we’ll just change the law books and call it marriage.

Unfortunately, now even I’m starting to wonder if Obama supports much of anything when it comes to teh gehs. There have been two recent editorials calling Obama out on his stance on gay issues. A recent Washington Post editorial argues against the “civil unions” argument:

Before his inauguration, President Obama called himself a “fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.” Now, with the same-sex marriage issue percolating in state after state and with the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy ripe for repeal, it’s time for Obama to put some of his political capital where his rhetoric is…

Favoring “civil unions” that accord all the rights and benefits of marriage — but that withhold the word marriage, and with it, I guess, society’s approval — amounts to another dodge. I’m concerned here with the way the law sees the relationship, not the way any particular church or religious leader sees it; that’s for worshipers, clergy and the Almighty to work out. Marriage is not just a sacrament but also a contract, and the contractual aspect is a matter of statute, not scripture.

Obama took the “civil unions” route during last year’s campaign and has stuck with it. While I see the political calculation — that was basically the position of all the major Democratic candidates — I never understood the logic. If semantics are the only difference between a civil union and a marriage, why go to the trouble of drawing a distinction? If there are genuine differences that the law should recognize, what are they?

It seems to me that equality means equality, and either you’re for it or you’re not. I believe gay marriage should be legal, and it’s hard for me to imagine how any “fierce advocate of equality” could think otherwise.

This is pretty damn true.  Unfortunately, Obama obviously doesn’t see equality as meaning marriage or, as I had optimistically assumed, he really did see it as an equality issue but knew he’d have to play politics and just err on the side of civil unions.  I’m not saying this is the right thing to do but I also can’t completely say it’s the wrong thing to do.

And what happened with repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?  Well, his website was changed last week to “changing” it and not “repealing” it.  Luckily the outrage over the change got it switched back to repeal.  But the whole incident doesn’t bode well for his administrations plans.  Doesn’t promoting equality mean you go out of your way to repeal discrimination you have control over?

CNN did a report on his hesitation to address these issues:

Ten foot pole? Might sound erotically appealing at first but Obama needs to get a little closer to us. Now all along I’ve expected that Obama would probably take his sweet time to hit the gay issues especially once the economy sank. Let’s remember that Clinton got screwed early on with gays in the military. Obama wants to push through more important issues at the moment like his banking reforms and the bailouts. Fine.

But the Obama administration took the unusual step of editing their civil rights issue page and removing any references to repealing the insidious Defense of Marriage Act. This is above and beyond one of the worst laws on the books. It has to be repealed and taken down. The law causes a lot of problems such as preventing immigration equality, preventing gay couples form being counted in the Census, not forcing all states to recognize other state’s gay marriages under the constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, blocks social security benefits to partners, and so on.

It’s a very bad sign that he removed this language. He explicitly campaigned on the repeal of DOMA. His support of a full repeal of DOMA was the MAIN REASON I supported him over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I can only assume now that five states and counting have achieved marriage equality, his administration realized that repealing DOMA would essentially mean making gay marriage legal across the country. And now instead of it being a promise that could be easily delayed, it’s one that might need pay out sooner rather than later.

I guess Obama can dodge and duck the gay rights issues for a little while. And I’m okay with waiting. But I am not okay with idea that he will completely renege on this promise.  I would like to stay hopelessly optimistic and naive a little bit longer.