This afternoon at 5:45 EST, Obama will present The Memo to expand minor benefits for LGBT federal employees.  The pre-memo fact sheet is an exercise in low expectations.  It tells us that Obama is not going to make change by changing any laws.  In fact, the fact sheet states twice that Obama has been scrounging for crumbs for us with the stipulation that they are already…

within the confines of existing laws and statutes

It remains to be seen if he takes the opportunity to push legislation so that he has more to offer us “within the confines” of the law.

You can watch live on C-SPAN.**  If you hear of other live viewing or listening locations before it starts, please drop them in the comments.

**Not working for me.  Anyone else have luck elsewhere?

UPDATE2:  While we wait for details or video, here is some priceless reaction from the fundies Obama thinks he’s winning over by hating on Teh Gayz.

Conservative Christians: Obama’s Gay Benefits Order Approximates Marriage

Conservative Christian groups criticizing the president’s memorandum extending certain benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees are alleging that the president is approximating the benefits of marriage – that he’s basically creating “marriage light.”…Here’s a statement today from Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright:

“Barack Obama’s order…attempts to elevate relationships outside of marriage as if they are the same as marriage…Federal funds should not be a political tool to elevate partner arrangements to be treated similar to marriage.”

UPDATE:  Press Secretary Gibbs re: Obama’s support for the DoJ brief (courtesy ABC News)

TAPPER: Does the president stand by the legal brief that the Justice Department filed last week that argued in favor the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act?

GIBBS: Well, as you know, that the Justice Department is charged with upholding the law of the land, even though the president believes that that law should be repealed.

TAPPER: I understand that, but a lot of legal experts say that the brief didn’t have to be as comprehensive and make all the arguments that it made, such as comparing same-sex unions to incestuous ones, in one controversial paragraph…

GIBBS: Well…

TAPPER: …that’s upset a lot of the president’s supporters. Does the president stand by the content, the arguments made in that brief?

GIBBS: Well, again, it’s the president’s Justice Department. And, again, we have the role of upholding the law of the land while the president has stated and will work with Congress to change that law.

Lee Swislow of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) responds to the pre-memo fact sheet.  She’s not buying it.

Presidential Memorandum on Federal Benefits and Non-Discrimination

Statement of LEE SWISLOW, Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Based on the White House fact sheet released earlier today, the Presidential memorandum will be but a very limited step toward equal benefits for the same-sex partners of federal employees.  It does not in any way resolve the important issues of fairness that are raised in our lawsuit (Gill v. Office of Personnel Management) which seeks to declare DOMA unconstitutional as applied to workplace benefits for federal employees and retirees, as well as several other federal programs.

Bread-and-butter protections like health insurance and pension benefits remain off limits for federal employees because the Defense of Marriage Act is still law.  Our plaintiff Nancy Gill is a postal worker who still can’t provide health insurance for her spouse, Marcelle Letourneau, even though she pays for a family policy that covers their children.  Al Koski, who’s retired from the Social Security Administration, still can’t provide health benefits to his spouse, Jim Fitzgerald, who has diabetes, let alone survivor rights on Al’s pension.  And Dean Hara, widower of the late Congressman Gerry Studds, still cannot receive Gerry’s pension nearly three years after his untimely death.  These are concrete harms that are not changed by today’s announcement from the White House.

The one and only way for this pervasive discrimination to end is for DOMA to end – whether by the courts declaring it unconstitutional or by Congressional repeal.  Only then will married same-sex couples receive equal treatment under law.

“President Obama’s tyranny of timidity” from Garden State Equality’s chair Steven Goldstein:

For immediate release

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Garden State Equality devoted considerable time and resources to Barack Obama’s campaign for President last year in New Jersey.   As an organization, we endorsed then-Senator Obama before the end of the 2008 Democratic primaries, when many of us who had been supporting various Democratic Presidential candidates came together in the interests of unity to help defeat George W. Bush.  

We have supported President Obama with passion.   But when a leader or political party takes the LGBT community for granted, our highest loyalty must be to the community itself.   We will criticize where criticism is due.  

President Obama now deserves our criticism.   His first five months in office have been a tyranny of timidity when it comes to advancing civil rights of the LGBT community.

Today, his much anticipated action extending benefits to domestic partners of federal employees specifically excludes health benefits.  To be clear, federal law would not prevent him from granting health benefits.  The President’s action today is not even an executive order, which he has the option to issue, but rather a lesser memorandum whose legal effect is more temporary.  

Earlier this month, the Obama Administration filed a brief defending the anti-LGBT Defense of Marriage Act in court.  That is in direct conflict with the President’s repeated promises as a candidate and as President to oppose DOMA.  

Adding insult to injury, in the Obama Administration’s brief advocating the continuation of DOMA, the Administration’s lawyers have repeated all of the Bush Administration’s most heinous prejudices against the LGBT community.  

Let’s be clear:   It is not true that President Obama’s Department of Justice is legally compelled to defend lawsuits against the federal government.  And never in a way that constitutes a grotesque slander against the LGBT community.  

The President’s sad early record doesn’t stop there.  The Obama Administration has offered excuse after excuse in refusing to take action on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  The President has the power to issue an executive order to immediately halt discharges based on the corrupt military policy – a policy which three-fourths of all Americans oppose.  

Immigration reform that would unite binational same-sex couples in the interests of fairness and compassion doesn’t even seem to be on the president’s radar screen.  And why hasn’t the President, who knows how to use the power of the bully pulpit, been more forceful in advocating for the passage of a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act?  

Garden State Equality rejects the arguments of those who say, give the President more time.  Or that this President has done more for the LGBT community already than his predecessors.  

First, a popular new President’s popularity will never be higher than now.  President Obama will never have more political capital than now.  

Secondly, we’re tired of comparisons to previous presidents.  2009 is not 1992.  Times have changed radically.   As poll after poll and state law after law indicate, the nation is moving ahead on LGBT civil rights far faster than is President Obama.

In the fight for civil rights, good things don’t come to those who wait.  Good things come to those who demand equality today.  

Civil rights progress doesn’t result from those who say, cut our leaders some slack.  Civil rights progress results from those who say, half-baked caution won’t cut the mustard.

In the bold spirit in which Garden State Equality has worked to get 210 LGBT civil rights laws enacted in New Jersey in the past five years, and has helped to bring New Jersey to the cusp of marriage equality, we reject pastel progress.

We demand more vibrant advocacy, right here and now, from the President who had the audacity to call himself our fiercest advocate.