WaPo: Obama 'Too Cute by Half' on Gay Rights Issues
Greg Sargent at The Plum Line looks at this week's announcement from the White House that Obama won't be signing an LGBT non-discrimination executive order in the near future and accusations that it was "a political move to fend off criticism from right-wingers who will never support him anyway."
But it does seem clear that the White House needs to figure out how it’s going to handle these issues — Obama and his advisers are coming across as too cute by half here.
There’s no denying that Obama and his advisers have a very good overall record on gay rights. But on this issue, and on gay marriage — two hugely important topics to the gay community — there’s too little clarity and too much of a whiff of excuse-making and political calculation.
Obama is trapped in a difficult dynamic that is in some ways the product of having done the right thing in other areas involving gay rights. Because of his real accomplishments in those areas, gay advocates are fully convinced he really believes in full equality for gay and lesbian Americans — and only grow angrier and more impatient when he hedges or equivocates on key issues. I can see why White House advisers would find this dynamic frustrating, but the simple truth is that it isn’t going away until he stops doing it.
Do people even remember what 2009 was like?
Sure, Obama could have fixed everything...
Anyway, I don't get all these claim that there's lack of clarity. He's being very clear. He's going to fight for passage of a bipartisan, nationwide, inclusive ENDA in the Congress. That's pretty clear. Whether it's doable is up to, among other things, us, including those folks at LCR and GOProud who seem to want him to lose the election...
He did it with DADT. There was all sorts of whining about ending DADT by executive order. He didn't do it. Imagine the campaign rhetoric today if he hadn't gotten the Congress to pass the repeal.
Posted by: BobN | Apr 13, 2012 12:48:30 PM
Hassia - that's my canadian perspective, too.
don't we want LONG-LASTING solutions, and not some "stroke of a pen" nonsense that will simply be undone should the bigots vote in a bigot of their own with his own pens?
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Apr 13, 2012 12:53:04 PM
I'm gay and a lefty, and Obama has disappointed and pissed me off many times, BUT we cannot leave the Supreme Court in GOP hands. The liberals on the court are among the oldest and sickest (and Scalia is 75). We cannot let Romney pick their replacements!
Posted by: Mike | Apr 13, 2012 1:21:48 PM
In my experience from working with Mormons in several places one of their priorities is the hiring, advancement, and promotion of other Mormons to positions of influence and power in whatever organization or business they can, regardless of actual qualifications for the position. Those mandatory Mormon tithes are worth it in the long run due to these member-of-the-club appointments and promotions. Look at the FBI or the Secret Service for concrete examples of this policy in action.
ALL groups do this to some extent, gays included, but think about Mormon social and political attitudes as a whole and the prospect of Mitt Romney having the power to nominate Supreme Court Justices, Department of Justice personnel, and all the many other positions the President is able to either appoint outright or nominate candidates for.
Then ask yourself whether the difference between Romney and Obama is really as insignificant as some are trying to make it out to be.
A "bigoted" statement? Perhaps, but so be it. That doesn't make it any less true.
Posted by: Caliban | Apr 13, 2012 1:46:01 PM
FACT CHECK:
1(a). Despite shameless Obambot lies to the contrary NO ONE EVER suggested that Obama using his unequivocal legal authority to freeze discharges in the name of national security under federal law 10 USC 12305 would alone end DADT nor that legislative repeal efforts should, then, be abandoned. This recycling and redeployment of their "permanent solution" excuse by Obama, Inc., is the political equivalent of "pink slime."
1(b). The facts around DADT repeal work AGAINST believing in Mr. Obama’s integrity and worthiness to "do the right thing when he can" because, inexplicably, he insisted on continuing to fight to overturn the ruling in the Log Cabin case that military discrimination against gays and lesbian is unconstitutional. In short, a future Repug president or Congress could bring back such a ban because MR. OBAMA kicked the legal door back open. Even if it is not, because Mr. Obama betrayed his original promised and backed Pentagon homophobes’ 2010 demand that the nondiscrimination [IN the military] clause be gutted from the repeal bill, gay and lesbian service members are TODAY denied the protections against harassment and discrimination automatically provided, e.g., blacks and women, under the Military Equal Opportunity Program.
2(a). In 1975, what was then called the United States Civil Service Commission removed their previous ban on gay federal civilian employees. Repug Presidents Reagan and Bush fils did NOT reverse that policy.
2(b). While one of his federal agency managers tried to ignore it, Repug George Bush fils did NOT reverse Clinton's Executive Order formalizing the Civil Service Commission's policy.
2(c). Mr. Obama himself used his executive authorities to order those protections extended to transgender federal civilian employees in 2009.
3. NO ONE has suggested that the effort to pass ENDA be abandoned upon his issuing any order to protect LGBTs employed by federal contractors. ENDA would, of course, include MILLIONS more employees in the private sector.
So any Obambot squealing that there's no point in doing this is CHOOSING to deny such protections to hundreds of thousands of LGBT federal contractor employees NOW just because they MIGHT be reversed in the future. That is as stupid as saying one shouldn’t go to work today because he might be fired next year.
And leads to the questions: to WHOM is your REAL allegiance, and are you familiar with the term "Beaten Wife Syndrome"?
Posted by: Michael Bedwell | Apr 13, 2012 3:34:34 PM