Gene Robinson
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.
Politicians in Washington who want to avoid what they see as a dangerous controversy have a convenient escape: They can say that the marriage issue should be left to the states and that the question of whether a legal gay marriage in one state should be recognized everywhere has already been addressed by Congress and ultimately will be settled by the courts.
But that's a dodge, not a stance. It certainly can't be confused with leadership.
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.
Obama sensibly advocates the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." He should press the case by publicly reminding opponents of letting gays serve openly in the military that their arguments -- it would hurt morale, damage cohesion and readiness, discourage reenlistment -- are often the same, almost word for word, as the arguments made 60 years ago against racial integration in the armed forces. It was bigotry then, and it's bigotry now.Obama should also make the obvious case that forcibly discharging capable, fully trained servicemen and servicewomen for being gay, at a time when our overstretched military is fighting two big wars, can only be described as insane.
What the president shouldn't do is stay away from the marriage debate on the grounds that it's not a matter for the federal government. For one thing, he's on record as favoring repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- a law that blocked federal recognition of same-sex marriages and relieved states of any obligation to recognize out-of-state gay marriages.
Rachel
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Andrew
It's the commander-in-chief's first persecution of a servicemember critical to national defense and intelligence. The man is Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and just returned from Iraq. Obama is firing him because he's openly gay. And he has no plans to change that policy, despite a clear campaign commitment.
LOOK, as Tavis Smiley points out, just because we like/love/voted for Barack Obama doesn't mean that WE don't have a responsibility to hold him to the commitments he made.
We are fools to expect him him to Keep Them just because he said so. The gay issues? still 'hot' and easily and actively dodged by politicians.
We must not just keep the pressure on, but raise. There are an awful lot of issues that a politician looking to avoid 'the gay' can point to as 'more important'.
But DADT Repeal is easy.
I now, with great seriousness, re-post part of one of my own contributions to this debate.
If you care about the gay people in your life you will follow the guidelines below.
AmericaBlog's John Aravosis notes significant edits made recently to the Civil Rights page on the whitehouse.gov website that seem to signal "a shift in policy, and a backward step from a clear campaign promise" to repeal the military's discriminatory "don't ask don't tell" (DADT) policy.
... The edits seem to be Obama's latest attempt to walk back his firm campaign promise to outright repeal the anti-gay policy. His 2010 budget included funding to enforce the policy; Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently admitted that a discussion about repeal "has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration," and that it hoped to "push that one down the road a little bit."
PLEASE USE THIS LINK TO LET THE PRESIDENT KNOW THAT REPEAL OF DADT IS NON-NEGOTIABLE
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