White House Responds to Anti-Gay Minnesota Marriage Amendment
The White House has issued a statement to the Washington Blade in response to questioning regarding the anti-gay marriage amendment by the Minnesota legislature over the weekend.
“The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples or to take such rights away. While he believes this is an issue best addressed by the states, he also believes that committed gay couples should have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.”
In related news, so many of HRC's Action Alerts were sent to the Minnesota Senate over the weekend in opposition to the bill that the servers crashed:
"Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman said their e-mail servers received about 235,000 messages between 4 p.m. Sunday and about 1:45 a.m. Monday, when the traffic eventually caused them to fail."
"...he also believes that committed gay couples should have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to ANY MARRIED COUPLE in this country.”
That is a subtle but SIGNIFICANT change in the President's rhetoric. He didn't say that gay couples should have the same rights as married couples, he said that they should have the same rights as ANY MARRIED COUPLE. That means that he's talking about gay couples AS married couples. That's the first time I think he's ever spoken of gay couples as married couples instead of couples with rights "like" married couples.
Posted by: TampaZeke | May 23, 2011 8:05:25 PM
More empty hyprocisy.
Posted by: The Iron Orchard | May 23, 2011 8:29:31 PM
Sorry, Zeke, I don't get any distinction at all, let alone a "SIGNIFICANT" one. All through the primaries and general he talked about "FULL rights for gays"—EXCEPT that "marriage" thingy, of course. Nothing this says he now supports marriage equality for gay couples, and the "he believes this is an issue best addressed by the states" alludes to his "states rights" position, i.e., that a state should have the right to legalize same gender marriage OR ban it.
FAIL.
Posted by: Michael | May 23, 2011 8:53:02 PM
In response to "In related news, so many of HRC's Action Alerts were sent to the Minnesota Senate over the weekend in opposition to the bill that the servers crashed: 'Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman said their e-mail servers received about 235,000 messages between 4 p.m. Sunday and about 1:45 a.m. Monday, when the traffic eventually caused them to fail.'"
This would be really great, except we've been working our hearts out for over a month. The senate passed the measure a week ago. Our best shot was the House Rules Committee earlier in the week. The final stop was the House debate, Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 11 when they voted. Minnesotans rallied, called, emailed, tweeted, wept.
Great that HRC Action alerts arrived Sunday and Monday, but by then it was already voted onto the ballot. We missed by 8 votes in the House. Maybe 230,000 emails a day earlier would have made an impact? The GOP has been marching in lock-step, but 4 broke rank. Maybe others would have seen the outpouring and joined them? I don't know...
Posted by: AJ | May 23, 2011 9:50:14 PM
The White House statement is clear as mud. The statement is meant to "entitle" President Obama to trot around Minnesota, collecting support, while reminding everyone in Minnesota that he personally thinks marriage is exclusively between one man and one woman. Obama's personal sentiments favor the Republican-sponsored Minnesota Marriage Amendment. The Democratic Party faithful in Minnesota really don't need Obama coming to Minnesota with a Republican message. Obama should stay home.
Posted by: DJ | May 23, 2011 10:04:17 PM
@ Michael,
The "states rights" argument can be used both for and against LGBT equality. As you pointed out, it can be used to allow states to ban as well as allow marriage equality. The states rights argument is also a very powerful argument in striking down DOMA, and many DOMA cases have used that argument.
Posted by: Phil | May 23, 2011 10:19:18 PM
This is what pisses me off the most about the President's "evolution." Either it's best left to the states, or it's invidious discrimination. Is he only opposed to invidious discrimination when it happens in states where bigotry doesn't usually prevail? It's an important right when the state has figured out that it's wrong to discriminate against us, but not in states where evangelicals believe that tornados are smiting them because they had a gay pride parade eleven months ago?
Gimme a break. It started even before the inauguration with Rick Warren, and it's continued, even through DADT and the refusal to defend DOMA.
I understand political expedience, and I certainly won't advocate against Obama's re-election, but I'll be damned if you can keep me from holding my nose while I vote for him.
Posted by: Thomas C. | May 23, 2011 10:55:36 PM
Aww c'mon people! You know how Obama personally feels about gay marriage. What do you expect him to say publicly? That he fully supports gay marriage? He won't get re-elected. Period. Your choice right now is not between Obama and someone better. It's between Obama and a downright hater of gays who would probably do anything in his power to stem the gay rights progress. This is something you seem to have a knack for forgetting. We're lucky to even have Obama at all in the White House right now. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
If Obama admits that he supports gay marriage he might as well say he's an atheist. (By the way I hope you know about that 2008 poll that asked likely voters how likely they were to vote for an atheist for president. A full 53% of them openly admitted they would NEVER vote for an atheist no matter how qualified he was).
I'm sorry folks but I just don't see that we have enough general public support for gay marriage yet. Yea yea yea a couple of polls have shown 51-53% support. People can answer however they like on these polls but the only answers I care about are those given on the election day poll. Voters harbor hostile feelings toward gays which they probably won't admit over the telephone in a CNN/Gallup poll but they have no trouble expressing those feelings on election day in the privacy of the voting booth.
Posted by: Mark | May 24, 2011 12:45:33 AM
Memo to HRC: All of Minnesota will vote on this constitutional amendment on November 6 2012. Please try to get your sh*t together and send out your email notice BEFORE then. It would be great if you could do something in the 18 months that remain to help defeat this ballot initiative. Unlike California, an amendment in MN needs 50%+1 of all persons VOTING, so those voters that skip this part of the ballot are votes in our column.
People get organized. Call or email your friends, co-workers and family in MN and ask them to support marriage equality. Do it today!
[PS: Same memo to the Log Cabinites. You did nothing about this until the day of the House vote. How tragic. Just a few more switches to NO and the proposed amendment could have been stopped.]
The traitors: DFLers Reps. Denise Dittrich of Champlin and Lyle Koenen of Clara City who voted for the amendment.
The cop-outs: DFLers Reps. Bobby Joe Champion of Minneapolis and David Dill of Crane Lake who did not vote.
The good guys: Republican Rep. Tim Kelly, (Red Wing) and Rep. John Kriesel (Cottage Grove), an Iraq war vet, and Republican Reps. Steve Smith (Mound) and Rich Murray (Albert Lea) as well as the 58 DFLers who said NO to hate and discrimination.
STOP THE MADNESS IN MINNESOTA IN 2012 !
Vote against the proposed amendment.
Posted by: TruthSeeker_Too | May 24, 2011 5:41:17 AM