Another Narrative Falls Apart

Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:00 pm by JM Ashby

In case you missed it, over the past week a narrative circulated among the professional blogosphere that there was disagreement at the very top of the Democratic party over the issue of including marriage equality as part of the party’s official 2012 platform. Some even claimed it was the Obama campaign that was resisting including equality as a campaign issue.

Based mostly on speculation and conjecture, this narrative does not hold up scrutiny. And if you judge based only on the president’s record up to this point, I’m not sure why there was even a doubt.

To reiterate this, the spokesperson for OFA North Carolina issued a statement yesterday on the president’s opposition to a North Carolina ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage.

“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples. That’s what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do — it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples — and that’s why the President does not support it,” Cameron French, Obama for America North Carolina campaign spokesman, said in a statement reported by the News & Observer in North Carolina.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, the Defense of Marriage Act is no longer being defended by the Department of Justice, the only openly-gay federal judges currently sitting on the bench were appointed by President Obama, and the openly-gay founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights sat at the table with the president and British Prime Minister David Cameron during the state dinner. And the American Foundation for Equal Rights, by the way, is funding the opposition to Proposition 8 in California.

This president has been more friendly to the LGBT community than any previous president, and at this point to suggest otherwise you have to essentially ignore the record as it stands.

Keeping pressure on your elected officials to advance progress does not mean treating them like an enemy when they are clearly on your side.

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  • jjasonham

    The fact is, if you judge the Obama administration “beliefs” on his RECORD you will not be confused about where he stands on gay rights. Plain and simple. We cannot assume we know his inner motivations and we waste our time and gain anxiety from trying to anticipate too much. Many people have become attached to the narrative they’ve built, and are only concerned about perpetuating it.

  • OccupyPosters

    So much of the disgruntled stuff about Obama comes from GOP functionaries posing as disgruntled progressives, all in the intent to ultimately suppress the vote.

  • mrbrink

    The Easter egg hunt at the Obama White House is a nice sunny day for all.

    I’d just like to say, there are men and women of authority, elected officials, leaders of business and politics who are actively hostile toward gay rights and equal justice under the law. They shame and stone and chop hands in their own brutal little ways, destroying lives with bullying and indifference, or passing morality laws in U.S. code.

    President Obama is America’s life partner compared to this opposition.

  • KXA

    Clearly, the Obama administration and the Democrats have made real political advances on many gay issues and for that they deserves clear and unambiguous recognition.

    Did I miss something? Is marriage equality now an official part of the democratic 2012 platform? If not, how can the narrative you described be falling apart.

    The president’s position on marriage equality is evolving. Remember, in 2008, he visited the Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA, where the pastor Rick Warren asked him to define marriage. “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Mr. Obama said. “For me, as a Christian, it is also a sacred union.” He has stated that it should be left to the states.

    Although the spokesman from OFA NC states “the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples”, he has also has not supported nationwide marriage equality. As a serious politician it appears that he is trying to thread a tricky needle here.

    It seems that concerted pressure from a broad and politically active constituency has helped the President move forward.

    How exactly is he being treated like the “enemy”?

    At the moment, the President is “clearly” not on the side of national marriage equality. lets hope he continue to change.

    • eljefejeff

      I agree. This is a president who understands American history and is concerned with his place in it. If he wants to be on the right side of history, then he should firmly come out in support of marriage equality before the election. Enough ‘evolving’. The country’s attitudes have evolved dramatically toward equality in the past 3 years. Time for him to get with it.

      • bintalshamsa

        I think Obama is considering the fact that “marriage equality” is not synonymous with “gay marriage”. There are other groups who are also dealing with government obstacles preventing them from marrying. I’m a queer woman with disabilities. Even if we instituted gay marriage all across the USA, I STILL wouldn’t be able to marry.

        I wish those complaining right now about the President’s process of evolving would take the time to evolve THEMSELVES. It’s time for my fellow LGBTQIA folks to get with it and stop acting as if marriage equality is all about them. If you aren’t willing to push for marriage equality for people like ME, then you aren’t really for marriage equality. You simply want to be included in those who are allowed to discriminate and marginalize other communities.

        Can you get with it, eljefejeff?

        • bintalshamsa

          And for the record, I don’t care whether hetero people call it marriage or civil unions. I’m more concerned about having my rights respected. What’s also lacking in these critiques of the President is any sort of critical analysis of whether marriage is an institution that is truly beneficial in the modern world. If folks are tired of backwards thinking heteros, then shouldn’t we abstain from it, too?

        • MarshallLucky

          It’s a process. Queer theory is the wave of the future, but this country is still digesting the idea that homosexuality is a valid life choice. Most people who are for same-sex marriage would probably support marriage rights for every part of the LGBTQIA spectrum, but that’s not a given even among leftists unfortunately. We’ve got growing to do.

          The danger which you touch on here is that when nation-wide gay marriage is achieved or close to achieved (and it will happen), the activists will say “done and done” and think the matter is settled. It’s going to take a lot of awareness and agitation to avoid that trap and push the envelope to where it belongs. I think it will happen in my lifetime, but for now we’re slaves to the aggregate, and the aggregate is behind on this one.

          Of course, I don’t think that’s anything like the calculus Obama is making, which has more to do with the political riskiness of unabashedly supporting gay marriage than any deeper probing of the perils of marriage definitions.

          • eljefejeff

            Agreed, it’s political. I assume he’d be happy to support marriage equality but never wants the right to accuse him of being far left.

        • KXA

          Please help me to understand your situation. What are the other barriers or communities that face marriage discrimination?

        • eljefejeff

          Can I get with what? You’re telling me I want to be allowed to discriminate?

          Marriage equality is about any man or woman having the choice to marry a man or woman. Is there a third option of which I’m unaware? Please educate me. Seriously. And don’t come on here making accusations without even telling me who you are and how you’re being oppressed.

        • http://www.politicalruminations.com/ nicole

          Come on now. eljefejeff said nothing that wasn’t supportive of marriage equality.

          You are out of line.

          Adding……and I’m inclined to think that you are a right wing op. You should probably get a little more familiar with your program.

  • MarshallLucky

    There’s a big difference between supporting existing initiatives and maneuvering behind the scenes in individual cases versus stating officially and unabashedly that the party and the candidate support gay marriage, full stop. I don’t think anyone is contesting that the president hates the gay community or has done nothing to advance the issue. The questions here are if the Democratic party is ready to get off its ass and just say it’s for gay marriage with no caveats, and if doing so is too risky for this President in this election.

    What do you think? Is it too risky, or have we come far enough in the last four years for it to be beneficial? Is Obama justified in not embracing this idea?

    • http://www.politicalruminations.com/ nicole

      Doing so at this point in time is too risky.

      Personally, I believe he will endorse marriage equality in his second term.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MTW2T6ECPQKRAY6VTP7XUJQ5AE Hsquared

    There’s a certain contingent of the left that is so obsessed with getting the President to say what the want him to say, that they can’t even acknowledge actually getting things done/progress towards a goal. You see this regarding LGBT issues, the economy, healthcare reform, etc. The want the President to be an activist; the job of an activist is distinctly different from governing. Is there anyone who can credibly argue that there’d be more actual (as opposed to symbolic) progress in the direction of LGBT goals if the President gave a full endorsement of same sex marriage? It’s more likely to galvanize the opposition and slowed progress.

  • http://www.facebook.com/johnny.kayoss Johnny Kayoss

    I emailed the Obama campaign before he was elected asking how he can honestly promote “separate but equal” as a valid path to equal rights (As he had repeatedly stated at that point that he did not support same sex marriage but did support civil unions. I never got a response.
    DADT was repealed at a time that there was a problem with enlistment numbers, especially of Arabic translators, due to the purges of homosexuals that recently had happened (A huge percentage of the translators turned out to be gay)
    Obama used taxpayer funds to defend DOMA until multiple judges had found marriage restrictions to be in violation of the Equal Protection clause.
    In the meantime, he lied us into a war for regime change, attempting to install the remnants of a old monarchy to replace a participatory democracy. He extended the patriot act 2x, expanding its scope in the process, he signed NDAA and HR 347.
    No I am not a frustrated GOP operative, I am someone that looks beyond brand identification to the actual records of politicians, and I hold them to the same standard regardless of label, and I cannot think of another president that has held a gay man in prison without charging him with a crime as long as Obama has. A gay man that rightfully should be declared a national hero.
    A letter from an underling recommending against a law that is assuredly going to waste taxpayer money in court time and will obviously be overturned by the courts as clearly unconstitutional hardly makes up for his “separate but equal” policies that he has been consistently pushing since before his election. It definitely does not override hi obvious warmongering tendencies or his cozy relationships with the bankers that destroyed the economy, much less his abdication of responsibility to prosecute the previous administration for its crimes, nor his abdication of his campaign promises to advocate at least for a public option for health care.
    Jill Stein, on the other hand, has always been pro-gay marriage, would prosecute both Bush and Obama for their war crimes, and would aggressively prosecute the financial criminals that Obama is depending on for his campaign funding. That is someone that is actually on my side.
    When Bradley Manning is free and Bush is in Prison, When Guantanamo is closed and Gaza open, when prosecutions of peace activists are ended and prosecution of Warren Anderson begins, and when I can catch a flight to Cuba without having to be irradiated or molested by TSA, then maybe Obama will be worth supporting. Until then, I’d prefer someone that has not proven themselves repeatedly to be a liar, a warmonger, and a political prostitute.

  • http://www.facebook.com/johnny.kayoss Johnny Kayoss

    1st You assume he support marriage equality, which contradicts every statement he has made on the issue
    2nd Considering what HAS been passed under his watch, (Patriot Act extentions, NDAA, Hr 347, extentions of the Bush tax cuts, Ben Bernake in charge of the Fed, caps on compensation from BP, etc slowing “progress” (if that’s what you chose to call it) would have only been a good thing.

    What he could have done, right from the start, is to push that the government get out of “Marriage” entirely, create a new category of “Household Corporations”, and transferred all existing Marriage Liscence to Household Corporation charters.
    This would have won the argument by taking all “reasoning” behind the opposing argument out of the picture.

    But he chose not to. Just like he chose to write the executive order to close Guantanamo specifically to give Congress the opportunity to overrule it (which he by no means had to do).

    Obama has seen that the “gay community” responds to being marketed to. Never let yourself be fooled that by being recognized as demographic is in any way being recognized as an equal.