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For those of you who read the official WH response to Kerry Eleveld regarding the overturning of Prop 8:
“The President has spoken out in opposition to Proposition 8 because it is divisive and discriminatory. He will continue to promote equality for LGBT Americans.”
Be sure to carefully parse that before believing he is celebrating with you – he has a different definition of “equality” that he is still preparing to defend. (The Politico):
Asked for White House reaction to Wednesday’s ruling, spokesman Ben Labolt pointed out that President Barack Obama has publicly opposed the same-sex marriage ban “because it is divisive and discriminatory.” However, he said the President “will continue to promote equality for LGBT Americans.”Nevertheless, Obama has also publicly opposed same-sex marriage, and a White House aide said the president’s position has not changed.
“He supports civil unions, doesn’t personally support gay marriage though he supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, and has opposed divisive and discriminatory initiatives like Prop. 8 in other states,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
Yes, we have a biracial constitutional law scholar for a President who still believes that “god is in the mix” and that separate is equal when it comes to marriage. As we noted earlier, with DOMA cases knocking at the DOJ’s door, it’s going to be put up or shut up (and shut the wallet by a lot of LGBTs) very soon.
Should also make it interesting for the next White House briefing. Do you think that Robert Gibbs will call on The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld and get someone from the WH on the freaking record?
If Obama wants to “promote equality for LGBT Americans,” he can support full equality, not “separate, but equal” civil unions. That’s so 2008. And, it has to change.Please sign our open letter to President Obama asking him to come out in support of full marriage equality. It’s time for Obama to get on the right side of history. And, we have to let him know that’s where he needs to be.
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This shouldn’t surprise anyoneHe was never a supporter of gay marriage, and he doesn’t flip-flop on issues unless it’s to become more conservative (off-shore drilling, public option, abortion rights, etc.)
Bottom line:
I will still hold my nose and vote for him in 2012 IF he’s on the ballot over ANY Repug [even tighter than I did in 2008]. And I admit he’s done SOME good things for the population generally.
But he is a FRAUD when it comes to full LGBT equality. AND inexcusably continuing our ill-conceived involvement in Afghanistan. How many more American sons and daughters have to be slaughtered before we end this?
Why?I will still hold my nose and vote for him in 2012…
And this is why Democrats aren’t taking our community seriously.
In other news,rocks are hard and water is wet.
The chance that an open letter to Obama will have even minimal effect is zero–or less. His five spiritual advisers would never let it happen, nor would his Republican pals–you know, the ones who helped him get more funding for his goddamn war. The American people, not to mention Joe and his comrades at AmericaBlog, need to face the fact that we have a Democratic president who behaves like a Republican. He won’t budge any more than his soul-mate George Bush ever did.
Dear Mr. President:What part of E-Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y don’t you understand?
Franken/Dean 2012
I’m not disappointed in the statement itself.We knew that was coming. I am very disappointed in the TIMING, however. I expected a day of speculation about Obama’s reaction before Gibbs cleared that up tomorrow.
Still very happy to have been a write-in voter through 2008.
“promote equality” like he promoted Lt. Choi?
Quoth the OWH anonymous source.
Would someone tell me if, when, Obama ever opposed an antimarriage or anti-DP initiative anywhere? At least since he started running for President? I’m damned if I can remember any such instance.
I’d vote for Rufus T. Firefly firstI wouldn’t vote GOP, but that doesn’t mean a vote for this guy. It’s not just LGBT issues. He has made just about a seamless continuation of Bush policies on the waronterra — see “The New Normal” at
http://www.aclu.org/national-s…
– he has done little with the No Child Left A Dime Act except maybe make it even worse, he gave us health reform with no public option and a free gift of 30 million new customers for the health industry, he has expanded our debacle in Afghanistan, he –
Oh, hell. I didn’t expect a Mandela, but I wasn’t expecting him to be a tower of Jell-O for us either.
Allow me to repeat….
.
FUCK BARACK OBAMA
.
.
Not meNo money, no volunteer work, no yard sign, no support, and no vote.
maybe one dayan enterprising journalist (i know they are few and far between) to ask Obama, as a constitutional scholar, just exactly how it is legal for “god to be in the mix” of civil marriage. But, no one will ever ask him that question.
And, with this new ruling, journalists have the opportunity to ask Obama just what parts of the Walker opinion he feels were wrongly decided based on his own knowledge of the constitution. Or, he could just admit that any bans on marriage equality are unconstitutional as Judge Walker has so thoughtfully proven.
maybe we need a new partyThey already have a plaform ready to hand.
– Progressive Party Platform, 1912
http://teachingamericanhistory…
I’ll give Obama the same support he gives me:I’ll tell my friends that I support his right to run for President. Then I’ll vote for someone else.
After the break, a new research study claims the sun will rise in the eastAnd in other news, fire is hot, Liberace was gay and Pope Benedict is still Catholic.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil n/t
“Maybe”? n/t
sky’s blue, water’s wetand women have secrets.
Dead in the waterAs the party simply doesn’t have enough support in flyover states to generate candidacy for the ballot.
Leg or HandOne’s going to be cut off.
Pick your pain.
I am.But then, I am a member of the community.
it hasn’t formed yetAnd in 1912 it ran second in the presidential race, pushing the incumbent (GOP) President into third place, and won in a number of down-ticket races.
Worth a try.
ah, my bad.I thought you meant one of the current ones claiming that title.
I will, of course, note that the party you mention was an offshoot of the Republican Party.
Teddy came from wealth and power, though, and believed in noblesse oblige.
that is indeed true
And so did FDR. Now that was a fierce advocate. There wasn’t much Socialist or Progressive opposition then because he had yanked their platform right out from under them.
Only bits of the platform…FDR was from that area when “liberal” meant “someone who recognizes that defending capitalism and the rich will require keeping the standard of living for everyone else at least somewhat bearable”.
Leftish 3rd partiesreally really need to stop thinking about a once in a 4 year waste of time try at the Presidential elections. That is pointless. Win some seats in state legislatures, win some state governorships, win some seats in Congress.
At one point Obama was for same sex marriage. When he was running for the Illinois Senate in 1996 Obama, answering a pre-election questionnaire said that he supported us; “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”
Obama, like most Democrats and almost all Republicans, is a bigot pandering functional bigot that somehow morphed into “gawd’s in the mix’.
People who advise us to stay in the swamp of the Democrat or Republican parties do us no favor. The DNC is run by open bigots like Obama appointee Tim Kaine and Obama retainee Leah Daughtry.
Daughtry uses DNC money to fund anti-GLBT anti-Choice propaganda. Think about that next time you plan on contributing money to any of this collection of bible thumping, bigoted cultists and creationists straight out of Elmer Gantry.
Obama is surrounded by ‘spirit world’ advisors and has prayer writers on his staff!?!?. It makes you wonder if that’s why the US is engaged in four – count ‘em – four unwinnable wars in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan simultaneously. Did the ‘spirits’ will it like they willed Reagan to attack Libya and Grenada.
Obama’s director of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Josh Dubois is another ordained pentecostal bigot. He helped Obama win back much of the bigot vote in 2008 and now he uses federal money to bribe pulpit pimps.
Obama opposes health care for immigrant and imported workers, is eroding women’s reproductive rights, kept the Clinton-Bush polices of kidnapping, torture and murder, is responsible for the rapidly growing death rate and suicide rate among GIs and for the mass murder of civilians from Palestine to Pakistan.
Obama is a total tool of Wall Street and an enemy of unions and working people.
You’re doing more than holding your nose if you vote for Obama, you’re putting the partisan needs of the Democrats ahead of the needs of the movement.
Electoralism is a dead end.The US is a banana republic, ruled by and for the looter classes who outright own the Democrats and their cousinbrothers the Republicans.
Elections are a good tool to educate and organize but they are not insturments of the kind of fundamental changes we need – socilaist change – to disarm the looters, end their wars and provide a good income for everyone.
What do you suppose would happen if s reaj leftist, as opposed to a reformist party, got a big majority. Would the rich roll over and play dead. Or would their tools in Congress abrogate the Constitution and declare the elctions null?
Maybe not presidentSome other office, with all the legal rights of a president, but we should call it something else.
Pres Obama: Just a touch of theocracy, please?Perhaps the Constitutional scholar is unaware that Jefferson, Madison , Adams, Paine, and Locke would be appalled at his rationale for opposing LGBT equality.
Those five spiritual advisors, QScribeI was just thinking about this a few minutes ago…
Now I’ve been in and around 12-Step type programs for…17 years now, is it. So I know a little bit about selecting “spiritual advisors”
[and as far as I know, Otis Moss, Sr. 9a black civil rights icon in his own right) is good to go; Otis Moss, Jr. is now the pastor at Chicago Trinity, Obama's former church...but I digress]
I was always informed that you pick no more then, say, 2 “spiritual advisors” for the types of things that you talk about with them (which is your personal relationship with whatever you perceive to be a Higher Power).
Bottom line; nobody chooses 5 “spiritual advisors” that I know of. Nobody.
That whole move struck me as insincere, phony, and going over-the top trying to impress people.
Rev. Wright had been doing the job by his lonesome for 20 years (the Wright/Obama relationship…fascinating as well).
That whole incident really, honestly, turned me off on Obama more than I’ve ever let on but for reasons which I and anyone who has gone through this whole process would understand.
It was all a goddamned show.
+100,000
You are very correctOrganize locally. Focus on local and state elections. Once we have a solid base of supporters and people who know us, THEN go national.
The real problem is the “quick fix” mentality that is so pervasive in American culture. People want rewards with no work; entitlements with no effort. Homer Simpson expressed this very eloquently: “Forty seconds? But I want it now!”
I have been giving thought to doing exactly this, and putting myself as a candidate for the Washington legislature. We’ll see.
WH Spokesman Axelrod on TV right nowand elaborated on the Obama position. No change. Opposed to true equality, “supports” (but with no objective evidence to demonstrate it) almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as-him, separate-and-not-equal status.
Why vote for him and others like him?If we don’t vote and they don’t win we do for a short period have to deal with an enemy that clearly says that they are our enemy. That part will suck but if the blame for the loss can be laid at the feet of the LGBT community then that gives us power and puts the Democrats on notice that they have to be for our rights or lose their elections. I welcome the opportunity to be blamed for Obama’s loss, if he loses, in 2012.
Ralph Nader, hanging chadsGot us into this mess. Unless that 3rd party candidate can truly win, voting for them would be a gamble, could make the country’s situation worse by sucking off votes from the lesser evil and make the greater evil win.
As it did a mere 10-years before. Perhaps some people have forgotten and need perspective.
It’s better to continue to pressure Obama with logic than to take votes from him so that Sarah Palin can win.
If her ilk wins, everyone will be carted away in railroad cars.
You are very wrong about Ralph NaderEven in 2000, at his strongest showing, Nader had no effect in any state: polls showed that the vast majority of people who voted for him would not have voted at all.
Far more of an influence were the 11% — more than one in ten — self-described Democrats who voted for Bush. Not for Nader, mind you: for Bush.
But, somehow, the Democrats never want to talk about their own party members who played traitor.
If you don’t vote, then STFUWhatever your motivations, if you are eligible to and don’t participate in the election, I hope you will shut the fuck up about politics for the next four years.
I’m all in with people who are dissatisfied with the choices we’re likely to get at the ballot box. I’m less sympathetic to people who feel that only perfection is allowed, and that a flawed and disappointing candidate is “no different” than an actively hostile on.
I can relate to people who feel that the issue(s) most important to them aren’t even remotely addressed, much less given a clear choice, with the candidates presented, but less so to people who can’t use some other criteria to make the choice. In this case, presented with to absolutely identical candidates, I’d vote for a Democrat to avoid feeding the lock-step Republican machine, but that’s my choice.
But if you don’t participate, then you have no right whatsoever to inflict your opinions on the people who do.
Whether you feel (as I do) that a vote for a third party Presidential candidate in the current political environment is essentially a vote for the Republican, but that there is a huge amount that can be accomplished with candidates in state and Congressional elections, or whether you feel that sending the message of disapproval to both parties is more important than practical outcome if that message will be lost, fine. I may argue with you, but I support your right to your opinion.
Stay home? Then you’ve chosen not to participate, and do us all the favor of extending that non-participation into not burdening us with your opinion.
So let’s all communicate.Let’s all mail a letter (best) or write a personal non-boilerplate email to the White House. How many people expressing disapproval or disgust with his position have told him so?
How about your other elected reps?
Chosing “None of the above” is always a valid choiceI will agree with you this far: if you decline to vote in a particular race then you should use the write-in option and vote for “None of the above.”
Elections are a scam. People who think elections can change things, instead of mass militant struggles, have zero understanding of US history and politics.
On November 2nd 2010 do what you can to repay the Democrats and Republicans for their bigotry, wars and economic looting and either vote for a left party or sit it out.
On November 6th 2012 do what you can to repay the Democrats and Republicans for their bigotry, wars and economic looting and either vote for a left party or sit it out.
Unless there’s an important initiative or proposition on the ballot.
Blinded by bigotry
Blindness due to his bigotry is the only explanation for not being able to see the inherent contradiction in professing to believe in “eguality” while simultaneously opposing it in fact.
I am sure that the President understands the concept of white privilege. The concept of straight privilege? Not so much.
You’ve got it 100% backwardIf you DO vote, you need to STFU. Because then you are responsible for the perpetuation of the status quo.
Don’t like the way things are? Want change? Or actual progress? Then why perpetuate the current system, which is clearly designed to impede progress?
I’m getting mighty tired of listening to people who voted for Obama now whining about him. Every last thing he’s done was signaled clearly during the campaign. If you voted for him, you got precisely what you bargained for. (And those of us who were saying so during the campaign took a sound drubbing from some of the people who are complaining loudest now.)
As we used to say in the 60s, not to decide is to decide. It is to decide that the game is not worth playing. It’s rigged. The house always wins. Only suckers play.
*sigh*I’ve posted about this several times before:
Letters to the White House do not go to the White House. They are directed to a boilerplate facility in VA where a team of freelance writers punch out standard-issue responses. (I know several writers who have worked there.) Only a microscopic percentage of them are actually forwarded to the WH–where they are dealt with by aides. Only the very few of those that might have positive PR value ever cross the president’s desk.
If you think writing to Obama will have the remotest effect, dream on.
Oh Dear, you just dated yourselfWhen you said “Liberace was gay”. I wonder how many of these whippersnappers here even know who Liberace was? Now I will date myself. Yesterday I downloaded episodes of “Highway Patrol” and “Sky King” and realized that I still know the opening lines of both shows.
that’s trueAnd even that consensus is gone now. See Michael Lind’s recent article in Salon in which he says, in essence, that the plutocracy doesn’t need the American worker as manufacturers, markets or even as security anymore. They do seem to want helots and servants, however. Coram Nobis sez check it out.
http://www.salon.com/news/feat…
Let’s be accurate…Voting or not voting supports the status quo.
Voting for a lesser of two evils doesn’t change anything.
Not voting doesn’t change anything (and, in fact, makes it more likely the worse of two evils will prevail).
What does make a difference is voting for something good, or voting against something bad.
Another poster here says that elections have never changed anything. Which is an outright falsehood. Elections are how we ended up with so many antigay mouthpieces in office. They ran for office. They lied through their teeth. They got votes. Then they ran for the next higher office as a new jackass ran to fill their seat. And they just kept on doing it.
And they were so good at it, they changed the character and nature of an entire party. They shifted that party from one that has historically supported civil rights to one that supports social conservatism and theocracy.
Elections did that.
And then, once they had power, thanks to elections, they made damn sure that they were the only one’s with money, and that big corporations can donate to their campaigns, because they do things that make big corporations happy.
That’s history. But I’ve found that such a lesson is usually far too subtle, and I know you are already sick of seeing my replies on this subject, lol
So does this meanonly Tea Baggers should be allowed to complain, as they voted but did not get the man & woman they wanted?
Only those who decided to be silent by not voting should remain silent. Their opinion won’t be counted but they’ll either benefit or suffer along with those of us who took a stand.
Al Gore also had something to do with itNader did tip the balance. Trouble is, if Al Gore had carried his own state, if he and the Dems hadn’t run such a tepid campaign, Nader would have meant nothing.
that’s true, do the grassroots firstThat was the problem with Nader and the Greens. They hadn’t built up a base of local elected officials and precinct workers, still haven’t in much of the U.S., but they let an outside celebrity walk in and run on their platform. A flag of convenience. Progressivism a century ago formed from jilted Republicans and the Grange movement and had at least a constituency and a consensus. And it did have a presence in a number of statehouses.
Civil ExecutiveI will not support Barack Obama for President. But I will support giving him many of the powers and duties of the presidency through a separate office of CIVIL EXECUTIVE.
My editorial opinion:ThomasTallis’ editorial opinion:
In spite of yesterday’s court decision, a spokesman for President Obama says that he still opposes same sex marriage but supports the “separate but equal” alternative of some sort of civil union. Previously Obama said he opposed it because “God is in the mix,” a blatant attempt to have his cake and eat it, too. Remember that when running for the Illinois legislature in 1996 Obama came down squarely in favor of same-sex marriage. I’m sorry to have to say that his change of heart smacks more of political calculation than an actual change in principle. Or is it the other way around?
It is both disgusting and disgraceful for the country’s first Black President, in the 21st century, to favor a “separate but equal” solution over true equal rights for all citizens. The FIRST priority of any President should be to ensure that ALL citizens are guaranteed full equal rights. Even with all that he has on his plate he has time to make a simple declaration of support, but he appears to be, above all, a man of expedience at the expense of principle.
Obama needs to get with the program, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because he’s going to pay a price politically if he doesn’t.
The anti-gay politicians who got electedwere, with very rare exception, running against other anti-gay politicians. People who voted for Obama thought they were voting for a pro-gay president. Look what we got.
As I’ve said before, if Obama seriously represented the prospect of change, the Democratic Party would never have given him the nomination. The entire system is rotten, right down to the middle of its bones. Participating–voting for a candidate like Obama, who claims to be pro-LGBT but has behaves exactly like his predecessor–accomplishes what, exactly? Answer: NOTHING.
It’s not about complaining.It’s about recognizing the system for what it is. Everybody is “allowed” to complain. But complaining about a corrupt system when you constantly do everything you can to perpetuate it is a bit like running in a hamster wheel and hoping to reach Paris, don’t you think?
Gosh dyssonance, don’t be coy. You can name names.Mine is Bill Perdue and I go by donal1944 because I screwed up when I registered. I don’t bite. I do sometimes try to correct errors.
When I said that elections don’t change things I wasn’t, as you claim, lying.
Elections didn’t build unions and get good contracts and benefits. That was the AFL-CIO. Elections didn’t win suffrage, suffragists did. Elections didn’t end the war in Vietnam. The movement did. Elections didn’t force the government to pass voting rights bills. SNCC, SCLC, King and Malcolm X did that.
In a banana republic like this elections occasionally ratify the results of mass action but never produce those results, Those who think elections effect change, that somehere over the rainbow a real lesser evil exists, that fundamental reforms are possible or that we live in a democracy aren’t dealing with a full deck. There is no political democracy without economic democracy. You either have both – and we call that socialism – or you have neither. We have neither. We call that capitalism, where the looted, workers and consumers, are prey to the looter classes.
No politicians run on their real program. They all promise one thing and deliver another. Clinton didn’t run on the promise that NAFTA would devastate the economies and environments of Canada, Mexico and the US. But he let it happen. He didn’t promise DOMA, DADT and deregulation, but we got the bigotry, the country got the depression and 15 million got unemployed. Those results belong to Clinton and the Democrats even more than they belong to Republicans.
well…actually, the reason I didn’t name names is because I didn’t look >*blush*< It was right below the reply window and I only happened to notice it.
Sorry, Bill. I also can’t argue with the points you raised — but they are different from the point I raised. I think, however, that the middle ground twixt our two points is that elections tend to reinforce the conservative, traditionally, not the progressive, since progress is always more difficult than stasis. Change, however, can come about — just not the sort we like.
I can think of one politician who will, in fact, run on their real program. Who will only make promises she can fulfill, and then deliver on them.
Me.
And where there is one, there is going to be another.
My view is…where were the pro gay politicians?
(yeah, yeah, I know — beating a dead horse on the “LGBT people need to run for office instead of bitching about the people that do”. Sorry. Truly, I gotta. THe only other option is civil war, and I try very hard to avoid killing people.)