I don’t think he understandsthat we will, without any sense of irony, show up to his 2012 campaign rallies with “Segregationist President” posters.  He is affirming separate but equal – absolutely unacceptable.

So if marriage is strictly a matter for the states…He is working hard to repeal the federal definition of marriage enshrined in the Denial of Marriage Act, right?
Oh wait: it is only a matter for the states when it validates his bigotry. It is a federal matter when that validates his bigotry. And when a state does decide, it will suddenly become a matter for state and federal courts to hash out.
“Fierce advocate,” my ass.

uh, uh, uh, splutter, splutterAxelrod seems to have been caught off-guard; he sort of cringed when she switched to Prop. 8. Well, yes, marriage is a state matter, that was the point of Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. HHS. But, and maybe he’s not a lawyer, the Full Faith & Credit and Privileges & Immunities clauses of Art. IV do come in at some point. The prez knows that.
Maybe Obama doesn’t reflect on this, however. If his parents had moved to Virginia prior to Loving, they would not only have not had their marriage not recognized, they would have been criminally prosecuted. That would have been a matter for “the states” too.

Amendment 2 fails, indeed defies, even this conventional inquiry. First, the amendment has the peculiar property of imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on a single named group, an exceptional and, as we shall explain, invalid form of legislation. Second, its sheer breadth is so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it that the amendment seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class that it affects; it lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests.
– Romer v. Evans

Religious Bigot or Coward?Poor Obama!  He has painted himself into a corner.  That corner is in the right lower corner – next to Pat Robertson, Ronald Reagan and every other dead (or brain dead)  conservative oldster in the land.
May the Democratic President be “primaried” by a liberal like…
Richard M. Nixon?  That might move him out of the 1950′s.  (and quite a bit to the left…sad when Nixon is considered more liberal than a Democratic president.)
When are Democrats going to realize that he is a trojan horse from the Republican corporatists?  Obama’s a double-win!  He gets pummeled by the “liberal” media and takes action always appeasing the corporate right.  He couldn’t be more of a puppet if wallstreet had their hands up his arse.  
I’ll be voting for someone other than Obama and his corporate stooges in crime.  I’ll be voting for those on the left.

will any journalistplease just ask Obama, the constitutional scholar, just how Judge Walker got it wrong in his decision saying that same-sex marriage is a constitutional RIGHT…..
Please ask Obama , the constitutional scholar, how “god is in the mix” legally in CIVIL marriage.

Both?He’s a segregationist because “God is in the mix.”
His fantasy hurts real people.  In my book, that’s criminal insanity.  

Those are not mutually exclusive options n/t

Axelrod did everything but recite “Jabberwocky”This kind of flannel-mouthed, double-talking bullshit is what we’ve gotten from the Obama administration from day one.  ”God’s in the mix,” Rick Warren, the hate brief, and on and on.  And it won’t stop till the day Barry leaves office (and maybe not even then–Clinton is still defending the knives he stuck in our community’s gut).
It couldn’t be much clearer that some brilliant political adviser (Rahm?) has told Barry he can get reelected without our support.  We’ll see.

Primary this foolI didn’t think his staff would really go this far.
They’re being mocked all over teh internets for this stance.
The Daily Show can’t be far behind.
There is no political upside to adopting this pretzel logic.  It just makes Obama look foolish.
Even if he chose the side opposing marriage equality, he wouldn’t look like this cartoonish political pretzel fool he has become.
I certainly won’t be voting for him in any primary.
I can’t envision a situation where I would vote for this nonsense in a general either.
My goddess, what foolish behavior.  Pick a side, and pick up a few votes either way.  This is just nonsense.

Pam, I’ve never seen you this angryat least in your online columns…
Beaming aboard Obamabots in 3, 2, 1…

shape shifter?His administration is showing its fangs today in other venues. The Pentagon is making new threats to Wikileaks –
http://www.reuters.com/article…
– and Hillary Clinton is threatening to cut trade with Brazil because Brazil has different ideas about dealing with Iran.
http://www.reuters.com/article…

“…for when they protested against his court and jurisdiction, alleging their privilege and exemption founded upon an ancient charter or grant of the Romans, he replied sharply, ‘What! will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by our sides?’”
-Plutarch, quoting Pompey

Dear Mr Weak-willed, ineffective, failing…I know as an overseas reader that I can’t do much to help, but I just posted this to the Obabma administration via the White House webpage:
Dear President Obama,
Like many other world citizens who believe in the equality and freedom of all human beings and the right of all to live their lives with dignity and love, I rejoiced in the decision of the Californian court yesterday affirming that Proposition 8 was an unjust and unconstitutional law that deprived gay and lesbian citizens of the joys of state-sanctioned marriage. Marriage is a CIVIL right for EVERYONE, and should be acknowledged as such even by those who have religious views on the subject. My delight has been mitigated today by the weak stance taken by your officials, and the deliberate undertones of the press release issued in your name.
Mr Obama, the world sounded out cries of joy when you were elected, with promises of change and a repeated vow that you were a ‘fierce advocate’ for the gay community. The past two years have shown that you – well, I won’t say ‘lied’ – have NOT lived up to those words. Again and again you and your government have failed to step up to the mark when it counted. You FAILED to issue a StopLoss order on DADT dismissals of vital members of the armed forces; you FAILED to support the gay community who valiantly fought but lost a public vote against their civil rights to marriage in Maine; you FAILED when you allowed your Department of Justice to use inflammatory and derogatory language to defend DOMA, an indefensible piece of legislative discrimination; you have failed to deliver on ENDA; and you have failed once again now, by this limp response to Judge Walker’s ruling. Oh, and by the way – YOU didn’t pass the HATE CRIMES bill, others had done the work FOR YOU!
In November, both this year and in 2012, you will see just how much your appeasing of the extreme Right will affect the Senate and the House, and as you slip into obscurity after your one-term presidency, maybe history will be kind to you by writing you off as ‘well-intentioned but ineffectual’.
Yours indifferently,
…….

It’s increasingly clearthat Obama opposed Prop 8 the same way the Bush opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Like, not. Bush kept saying that he didn’t see the amendment as necessary because the federal laws were holding and that unless there was a serious challenge to them, the amendment wasn’t needed.
Obama felt that Prop 8 was mean spirited and divisive, but apparently doesn’t feel that it was actually wrong, either morally or constitutionally.
If he actually supported Federal Civil Unions, he might have actually, oh, I don’t know, called for them to be put in place by Congress?

she doesn’t like stupidity, malice or duplicityAnd we’re seeing it from OWH. And Obama, of all people, is being obtuse if he believes this crap.
And this argument is about as obtuse as it gets. A stupidity that insults the hearer’s intelligence. Damn right she’s angry.

Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race. The second argument advanced by the State assumes the validity of its equal application theory. The argument is that, if the Equal Protection Clause does not outlaw miscegenation statutes because of their reliance on racial classifications, the question of constitutionality would thus become whether there was any rational basis for a State to treat interracial marriages differently from other marriages. On this question, the State argues, the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, this Court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature in adopting its policy of discouraging interracial marriages.
– Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

Obama is talking ‘states rights’ again.That’s was the rallying cry of Democrats from Jefferson Davis to George Wallace.
It was also Hillary Clinton’s position during the campaign.
A Republican is a racist right centrist with a theocrat attached at the hip. A Democrat is a Republican in drag.
With Democrats like this who needs Republicans?

Why wait?We should show up at every one of his public events with these signs.

Obama should be open and just plainly say ” I don’t believe gay and lesbians deserve to get married they are inferior and must be relegated to second class citizenship through federal CU’s.”
He is all about transparency so be transparent. And that way he can pander to the anti-gay side that he is so obsessed with trying to please. While ignoring or not even caring about the real mental,physical, and fianancial  harm they inflict on us.

Not “President”I call him Civil Decider–since it would upset so many people to redefine “President” to include him.

If it’s a state matter…then Judge Walker’s ruling was wrong. California had already decided.

Barack Obama: An Obstacle to Equality, not an AllyLet’s put this to rest once and for all and draw a line in the sand:  Barack Obama is a bigot who is NOT an ally.  
Everyone who fights for social justice should be APPALLED and DISGUSTED that a black man in this country would dare to use the arguments of segregationists (states’ rights) to defend the continued discrimination against lgbt people.  
We can’t dance around the Bigot-in-Chief’s own words.  We can’t make any more excuses.  We can’t lie to ourselves and each other any more.  

OWH?Why at this point are you still differentiating between the White House and its occupant?
None of this is happening without the approval of Civil Decider Obama.
Stop letting him off the hook for it. What, do you think Axelrod has gone rogue or something?

And yetwe have to vote for him, because the Republicans are so much worse.
I don’t much care, at this point. In the choice between two evils, I’m going to choose no evil at all.

TroublingJust watch Axelrod’s body language when he realizes the first question is about marriage equality. He’s clearly uncomfortable. And then we he starts his answer, he takes a somewhat condescending tone towards the anchor, but most troubling is the phrasing of his answer…”The President opposed Proposition 8 at the time. [...] He opposed it at the time.” What’s the purpose of adding that prepositional phrase? Does that mean he supports it now? Adding that phrase makes no sense unless it is to distinguish his position then from now, especially given the tense of the verb. He opposed Prop 8 (past tense) at the time. Does he still oppose Prop 8? Is this like where he once supported marriage equality back in 1996, but once the ghosts of that “good ‘ole Jim Crow segregation” were revived, his position regressed from one of real full equality to one of separate but “equal?” I agree with others here that the press needs to press him on it. We need clearer answers to several questions based on the statements from the White House over the last couple of days:
1. Kerry Eleveld’s question: The President says that he favor a repeal of DOMA because he thinks it is discriminatory, but he not clearly stated whether he thinks the discriminatory DOMA is in fact unconstitutional. As a constitutional scholar, what is the President’s opinion on the constitutionality of the D[enial] of marriage Act?
2. Does the President now support Proposition 8 given his advisor’s statements terming his opposition to Prop 8 being in the past.
3. If the President disagrees with Judge Walker’s analysis that compels a conclusion that marriage is the on;y acceptable constitutional remedy, can the President please explain the error in Judge Walker’s analysis.
4. If or rather when, the Perry v Schwarzenegger case reaches the Supreme Court, will the Obama Justice Dept and its Solicitor General be filing amicus curiae on be half of Perry and the marriage equality advocates or will they support the Prop 8 side because of the implications to the President’s opposition to marriage equality or its potential implications on DOMA?
I’m sure more similar questions are possible. The LGBT community deserves answer from this President, who has so obviously LIED to the LGBT community when he claimed he’d be a fierce advocate and that he’d use the bully pulpit of the White House to advance equality.
You can’t claim to support “full equality” for LGBT ‘s and oppose marriage equality. Indeed, “full equality” is a misnomer. it is a binary state. There is either equality or there isn’t. If “civil unions” qualifies as “full equality” then the problems with Topeka’s Negro only schools could be solved by renaming them “centers for Negro achievement,” since “school” is a term meant for institutions for white students to learn, and giving the “centers for Negro achievement” the same supplies, books, and level of teachers as the schools for whites. We all know that wasn’t enough and that they wouldn’t be equal. Thurgood Marshall, Oliver Hill and John Hope Franklin proved it in the Supreme Court and Earl Warren and a unanimous Court agreed. Separate but “equal” is never equal.

Axelrod Caught Off Guard?Tell me you’re joking.  He HAD to know he would be asked about Perry, et.al.  It’s only the most significant civil rights case since Roe v. Wade….

I’m notBut I’m having a hard time differentiating between the OWH and the BWH on anything except style. The OWH is a single entity, and everyone in it is a finger on Obama’s hand. And that hand seems to making a gesture at us.
Either that, or Obama can’t control his minions, and if that’s true then it makes him look bad as well. Either way, it’s his fault.
God is in the bridge mix.
Respondeat superior. The legal doctrine that the firm is liable for the actions of its employees.

This mealy mouthed mincing and parsing of words is what we got from Clinton too.  Look out.  The “fierce”ness of his advocacy is weak as water.  He is hoping that the SCOTUS will do his job for him.

significant to us, maybe, and to MaggieThis is on a day in which Hillary gets into a spat with the President of Brazil, in which the ODOD makes new threats to Wikileaks, and Kagan is confirmed, for whatever good that’ll do. And he did seem to cringe when the conversation shifted from Chicago to Prop 8. The man’s an apparatchik, not a spokesperson.

“Politics” comes from the Greek word poli-, or “many”, and tics, or, blood-sucking insects.
– Robert Reich

Y’know, I’ve seen you post thishere and on Americablog Gay and I’m slowly but surely coming around to your POV ,especially this one about how it would upset people – racists – to call him the president. Civil Decider it is.

Hillary for President, Anyone?The thought of voting for a Republican just makes me sick.  So does not voting at all.  But if Hillary was a choice…

In fairnessalthough I’m no fan of the False Advocate, this part:

The President opposed Proposition 8 at the time.

I interpreted as “He doesn’t just oppose it now, he opposed it then, too, when he was running for office.”
Badly, and ensuring he gave full cover to bigots, with his Gawd is in the mix bullshit, but he did sort of mumble “Well, yeah, Prop 8 is bad” before he went back full volume to repeat for the nth time that he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman.

Hillary? Really?And that would get us where?
You recall that she danced around just as much as Obama, with her “state’s rights” pronouncements, and also saying she doesn’t support true equality, just a kind of second-class, pseudo-equality.

Nothing new here folks.We are a tolerated constituency within the Democratic Party as far Presidential politics is concerned folks. Lets not forget who was in the White House when we got DADT & DOMA. The “GAYTM” is closed to the Democrats this year as far as I am concerned. I would rather give my money to “getEQUAL”, or numerous other grassroots groups.  

My anger is at the bumbling incompetence that these administration dolts have to engage in to justify a position that cannot be justified, given the President’s own personal history that is entertwined with constitutional issues.
Talk about a bizarre legacy of defending discrimination and separate but equal in the history books. It’s political homophobia at its best/worst.
The insincerity and utter foolishness is mindboggling. I can’t stand this lack of transparency as the legal walls around this position are tumbling down on Barack Obama and he’s continuing to say he doesn’t see anything falling.

So, Obama is opposed to Prop 8because it’s mean spritied but he supports marriage as the exclusive domain of heterosexuals. Which is what Prop 8 is was based upon. Sorry, he can’t divorce himself from his own meanness.

ATTENTION: Now exercising the right I’ve earned…
I TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL!
I TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL!
I TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL!
I TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL!
This is NOTHING new! Behind all the Obama Mafia smoke and mirrors during the campaign about HIM being the REAL Messiah for the Gays because HE would repeal ALL of DOMA whereas Mrs. AntiChrist only supported repeal of Section 3 denying federal recognition/benefits for gay couples was the fact that JUST LIKE HER he supported a state’s right to do whatever it wanted [which is what DOMA Section 2 speaks to].

But noooooooooo one would listen; no one would give her credit for at least being honest [though wrong] while ignoring his contradictory positions: eliminating Section 2 is irrelevant if you turn around and still support their doing whatever they want anyway.
They chose to “hear” that what HE “meant” was he supported a state’s right to LEGALIZE marriage equality ….ignoring that he ALSO meant he supported their right to BAN it.
While gay media did report he supported such “state’s rights,” they never linked that with the contradiction in his “Repeal all of DOMA – Me Good/Her Bad!” shell game that they praised far and wide….even when MSM reported how shallow it was:

Obama believes states should be under no obligation to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. He wants to fully repeal DOMA, however, because he views the statute as “ineffectual and redundant,” in the words of [Obama's constitutional law professor and campaign advisor Lawrence] Tribe. Obama believes a long-recognized public policy exception to the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause exempts a state from having to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state which runs counter to its own public policies. “Marriage is not something that states have ever been obliged to recognize if it’s been against their own public policy,” said Tribe, who has testified on the subject before Congress. “Same-sex couples in Massachusetts are neither better nor worse off with DOMA repealed except that the repeal of DOMA is a way of telling that couple that their marriage in Massachusetts is not going to be made the subject of a symbolic and ineffectual slam by the federal government.” – ABC News online, August 10, 2007.

Some even claimed HE had said he would institute a federal form of civil unions when he never did and even imagining he had was even crazier on its face given the federal government isn’t in ANY kind of marriage business.
Some of you got what you campaigned for: Barack Obama. Ya got the lies you bought. He had “FRAUD re LGBTs!” stamped all over him but you wanted to believe he REALLY didn’t mean it when he said, “God is in the mix.” That he didn’t really mean to imply, “FUCK YOU!” when he WAS CHALLENGED during the 2007 HRC-LOGO forum about the contradiction between that discrimination and what his biracial parents might have faced. [In trying to deflect the question, he insulted not just gay but his own heritage, showing how ignorant he was of it by saying the black civil rights movement wasted time focusing on overturning anti-miscegenation laws when, in fact, organizationally, they invested very little in it at all. Loving v. Virginia wasn't driven by the NAACP or SCLC, etc.]
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, this is NOT to say that Hillary would have been better in this regard…only that SHE wasn’t a hypocrite about it the way he was. HE got a pass for his duplicity and she got pilloried. [I do think she would have immediately said to Gates re DADT: "Fuck you, fella. This ain't my first time at this rodeo! It's gone!"]
The motto of this administration for LGBTS is the same as his campaign was:
PISS ON THEIR LEGS THEN TELL THEM IT’S RAINING!
And countless LGBTs are STILL taking it. Who knew Phil Attey was a Golden Shower Queen?

The difference in 2008Between Clinton and Obama on gay issues was very minor – we knew we would get screwed under Clinton, we weren’t sure under Obama. Now we know that nearly all senior Democrats are political cowards on this topic.  

You’re misremembering the full story again…
…see pissing statue recap of campaign events above.

“Mumble” implies he “said” something outloud against Prop 8
All I remember is a printed statement he issued to some gay group in California that was washed away by these flyers from the YES cockroaches:

I would BET he was asked, as Bill Clinton was, to record a No on Prop 8 robocall for voters.
What I know for certain is that Bill DID record such a message and that YES on 8 created a devastating robocall using a recording of Obama’s “God is in the mix” statement.
I’d also bet that he got asked for a stronger, video taped statement against Prop 8 gays could use in CA ads after those “God” calls started going out.
What I know for certain is no such thing ever appeared.

“The fish rots from the head down.”

ding, ding, ding, ding…I too during the campaign had a hard time believing those that “thought” Obama had proposed a federal civil unions registry that would apply to all 50 states.  So, I wrote to Obama’s campaign and asked for clarification.  They finally admitted that Obama’s position was that federal recognition should be given to same-sex couples in states that “just happen” to allow legal recognition of same-sex couples.  Those in other states get no federal recognition.
I also had them clarify an earlier campaign statement Obama made when he proposed having the govt get out of the marriage business, have civil unions and let churches decide about marriage.  If he actually meant this for ALL citizens, I was ready to support him 100%.  Sadly, the clarification from his campaign was that he was proposing this for same-sex couples ONLY.  Straights would still have govt marriage licenses.

Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Bush held a special press conference to announce he SUPPORTED the FMA!!!!
“Federal Civil Union”…..no precedent for given there’s not even “Federal straight marriage.”

This is disgusting. I can’t believe that Obama would send Axelrod out to say this today.The entire country is celebrating with us, and Obama had to do this? Now, just when the momentum was beginning to shift toward equality and fairness and decency?
Right now I feel nothing but a sick contempt for this man in the White House. It hurts to know that I sent him money during the 2008 campaign, voted for him in the primary and general election. No more. Never again.  

Too bad PAID gay media didn’t take your initiative…
…instead we had people like Kerry Eleveld and Lisa Keen simply parroting his lies about his record and how much “better” he was than the She Devil.

Hillary would be identical to Barack on this issue.Hell, the Clintons invented triangulation as we know it today.
I would not be surprised that after Obama leaves office he might “evolve” on this issue and support equality. Like Bill Clinton,Al Gore, etc etc. Hopefully by then we will have won and he can feel the shame he deserves for refusing to be a leader for true equality and siding with bigotry.

Kerry Eleveldhasn’t improved any since.  She is still perfectly willing to publish articles stating the Obama position that the administration MUST defend DOMA and DADT in court.  She “cleverly” uses the “some people say” form of journalism when doing it.  But, she doesn’t bother to clarify that even though some people “say it”, it just isn’t so.
She is “lazy” in my opinion.

Obama exemplifies so well…the sad, sad truth of the political process and  of unfulfilled potential.  The disappointments just keep piling up.  While I was always cynical, I thought that maybe this time around someone with a different vision just maybe had come along.  Instead, it’s just the same ol’, same ol’.  Everyone gets corrupted, I guess.  It really is like All the King’s Men or the old Redford movie, The Candidate.
And that’s the best-case scenario, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that he was idealistic but later became corrupted by the political process.  The more depressing realization–and probably more accurate one–is that he never believed what he claimed at all, but was merely calculating all the while. I’m sure several of the people on this thread would posit just that (Michael Bedwell of course).  Essentially, though, Obama’s no different than Hillary, McCain, Palin, etc.–regardless of his disingenuous approach to gay issures during the election.  Who cares whether he was more dishonest about it and Hillary was less so?  For us, the end result is the same.  We’re screwed either way.
I guess I officially give up on ALL politicians at this point. It’s time we ramp up our efforts in the courts and waste no more time on the false prophets.

And now for a tasty bone from the administrationSince they know they’ll need something to pacify forks the bone will be ENDA.
But! It will turn out that to get the necessary votes from important Conservadems or Moderate Repugs gender identity will have to be removed from the bill. HRC will fold up like cheap lawn furniture and parts of the GL community will insist the we have to get this for GL people NOW or wait unknown years before there is another chance. No matter if such a bill passes or not it will be a bloody mess-with trans people blamed if an exclusive bill is not put up and passed and great anger among all T folk and allies if it passes.
BarbieAnnR
(Oh and those Conservadems and Moderate Repugs may not vote for any bill.)

Dumb Iowan hereOK. Somebody explain this to me. If LGBT rights continue to be decided by the courts, why do we even need to waste time and money supporting the Democratic Party. I know somebody will say that the party in power appoints the judges, but wasn’t the Prop 8 decision decided by a judge who was a Republican appointee. The majority of the Iowa Supreme Court judges who made same-sex marriage legal in Iowa were also Republican appointees. The Iowa Supreme Court decision was unanimous. I ain’t buying or even paying for the bulls**t anymore.

A thought-provoking observation!

The community is still splinteredThe more politically involved people I know won’t support Obama.  The less politically involved still believe the fairytale that Democrats are on our side.  Then again, a lot of people don’t have time or energy to follow everything on a daily basis–they’re too busy trying to survive.

It wasYep.  It was a bad decision, even if it was beneficial to gay couples.
DOMA is an attempt to overrule the constitution with a piece of legislation.  This is a fundamentally flawed bill – if legal, the whole constitution is meaningless.
Give us full faith and credit, and it really doesn’t matter what CA does.  Hop on a plane/bus, get married in Iowa, come back.  CA is free to not marry gay couples, but not free to redefine or ignore marriages obtained elsewhere.
Want to marry your first cousin?  Most states don’t allow it.  Find one that does, come back, and there is nothing your home state can really do about it.
Marriage was (and should be) a state issue, as it is effectively (from a government perspective) a contract between two individuals.

I was there with you once the Logo Visible Vote debateAll the signals were there.  Unfortunately, it was about 3-1 at the Colorado Caucus.
(Actually, I preferred Edwards and still don’t care if he had an affair.)

UnfortunatelyIowa would be in the same position as California if there were voter initiatives allowed in your state which would have mob ruled a voter overturn of judicial ruling for equality.

Iowa … Cooler that California since foreverYa. I’m always flaunting Iowa at my California Facebook friends. If you do the research, you’ll find that Iowa has perhaps the most progressive history of civil rights laws of any state in the US. We’re not perfect. We currently have one of the largest percentages of minority prison population in the country. But we are also not as bad as some national LGBT media try to paint us. Every time some right wing crackhead in Iowa makes a statement against LGBT rights, the Advocate picks up on it and publishes an article that makes it sound like LGBT legal equality in Iowa is in serious jeopardy. Most of these situations never even make the local media in Iowa because no one takes these idiots seriously. Some progressive fundraising groups (both LGBT and general issue) have also exploited the “LGBT legal equality in Iowa in serious jeopardy” stories in seeking donations. You just gotta be careful about what you believe.
Which brings me back to my original comment: I have reached the point where the Democratic Party (at least on the federal level) has lost all credibility to me.

The judge that decidedthe two Massachussets cases was also appointed by a Republican, Richard Nixon.  That looks like 4 points for the Republicans and zip for the Democrats.  Makes ya think…

Back to square one CompuChick. H. Clinton and Obama have almost identical positions on same sex marriage. They’re against it because it makes it easier for them to pander to bigoted voters.  
H. Clinton says

“Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage always has been, between a man and a woman.”

Obama says

“I’m a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”

H. Clinton and Obama oppose same sex marriage and endorse the second class status and homohating discrimination of civil unions or partnerships. Both echo the traditional battle cry of Democrats opposed to progress from Jefferson Davis to today – States Rights. The actions of both belie their words.
Opposition to same sex marriage and support for civil unions/partnerships is bigotry. When LGBT folks support civil unions/partnerships for tactical reasons they’re not bigots, just totaly miskaken. But when right centrist, cult driven straight politicians do it it’s bigotry, pure and simple.
Obama and H. Clinton are bigots, liars, politicians, Democrats and political hustlers. Some people, when the knowledge that the Democrats are worthless sinks in, begin to consider the Republican Party, but they’re just as bad.

But it’s important that it only be passed in the HouseAnd not by the Senate. Otherwise Obama might have to veto it, and then he’d really look bad.

The Democrats opposed his nomination.

“In fact, Judge Walker was first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, at the recommendation of Attorney General Edwin Meese III (now the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation). Democratic opposition led by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-CA) prevented the nomination from coming to a vote during Reagan’s term. Walker was renominated by President George H. W. Bush in February 1989. Again the Democratic Senate  refused to act on the nomination. Finally Bush renominated Walker in August, and the Senate confirmed him in December.”

— http://www.outsidethebeltway.c…

Iowa surprised meI read a piece about it after the ISC ruling that covered all the ways Iowa was ahead of the curve, then met a woman at the Meet In The Middle event who had moved here from Iowa – so she could live in a more progressive state. She was rethinking her living arrangements.

Of course they won’t.It’s too hard for them – they’re too busy admiring their bought-and-paid-for corporatist, seregationist President.

and don’t forgetthat in 2008, Obama went further than any of the other Dem candidates’ ritual recitations of the ‘I support civil unions” line, telling the HRC in an interview that he opposed applying the word marriage to same-sex couples because the word had a “spiritual” dimension.  In other words, Obama tacitly supported the homophobic canard that same-sex relationships are never based on anything with a longer shelf life than a brief sexual attraction.  And as I recall, any attempts to point that out in 2008 got promptly slapped down.
No one can be shocked at this who wasn’t wearing rose-colored, googly-eyed fan glasses two years ago. Don’t be fooled again!

“Yes it is a state matter, just like a drivers license.”Agreed, it’s a state matter; but not just like a driver’s license.  The latter has far more requirements attached to it; all an opposite-sex couple needs for a marriage license is two consenting, mentally-competent people who are not closely related to each other and who fulfill the state’s residency requirements.  For that matter, you have to jump through more hoops to get a notary license in some states.  So much for legal marriage being a “privilege.”

Oh, Pam I agree with youthese contradictory positions (anti-marriage equality/anti-Prop 8) are not sustainable to anyone with any sort of common sense.
It’s two-faced hypocrisy, period.
I just think that this is as good a piece of polemical writing here that you’ve ever written, really.

howard dean for presidenthe may not be perfect but he has a record of actions that back up what he says.  i don’t trust hillary tho i like her.  obama is a sore disappointment and he won’t again get my vote or money.  i’ll take sarah palin’s presidency and the destruction that will mean just so the country can get on with deciding which way ‘we’ are going to go.  i am sickened by nancy pelosi smugly saying that democrats have no worries.  

Well, Mr. Axelrod, if marriage is “a state matter”than the Obama Adminsitration must feel that DOMA Section 3 is unconstitutional, right?

The only way Obamashould come out in support of gay marriage is if he follows up that statement with “I will not seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.”
Obama is WAY too smart to sink his agenda and the the whole Democratic Party on a politically toxic and unpopular issue like this. Supporting gay marriage would essentially hand over the presidency to the GOP on a silver platter. I will NOT support a candidate who is willing to sink an entire agenda on one issue. It will be 2004 all over again.

Driver’s licenses are recognized in all fifty states. DOMA prevents equal marriage from being recognized from state to state.

It’s not his lack of support for marriage equality that gets to me, to be perfectly honest.
It’s the way he does it.
For example,even with this what do you hear more often: do you hear about the nastiness of these constitutional amendments or his non-support of gay marriage?
The Obama Administration sounds like homophobes when they do this.
And why is this never followed up with anyone asking about the position that he does support; that is, civil unions (and I would agree that even that is somewhat poitically toxic, but it’s a fair question to ask)

not in ArizonaTheir new ausweiss law will not recognize licenses or other identity documents that don’t require proof of citizenship, e.g., California’s driver’s license.

… who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes …
– Allan Ginsberg

OT: Obama’s defense exportsSomething besides his DADT policy to ponder. It seems Obama is lifting restrictions on arms exports. That, of course, benefits our national-defense interests by further destabilizing things.
You betcha.
http://www.commondreams.org/he…

Critics say decontrolling weapons systems could fuel regional arms races, allow technology to fall into the wrong hands and, because arms purchasers often want to set up their own industries, end up exporting jobs abroad.
“The concern that we have is that the net result of this process would be to open the floodgates for military sales to states that do not meet the standards established in years previous,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“We’re No. 1 in weapons in the world, so I don’t understand what the problem is we need to fix,” said a Republican staffer for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic.
– article

I call bullsh*t on that.It’s not 1993, or 1996, anymore.  To make the argument that coming out against gay marriage would be the kiss of death for Obama’s re-election chances I think you need to provide evidence.
Public attitudes have changed quite a bit.  Yes, you’re not going to find polls saying a majority of voters are for gay marriage.  But large majorities of Americans also oppose the war in Afghanistan, but Obama is escalating anyway.  Large majorities of Americans opposed bailing out the banksters, but Obama poured money into them anyway.  Large majorities of Americans support government admnistered healthcare for all (not the “public option” proposed by Obama, which would have available to 5% of the public, or the lousy for-profit health insurance bailout bill Obama rammed through Congress).  Obama is going against the majority view in a number of important policy areas.  
It’s 2010, and I think that Obama in this climate could figure out a way to, if he wasn’t a bigot, publicly support true equality for GLBT Americans and still garner enough electoral votes to be elected.  

Remember when Obama said that he didn’t care if he was a one-term President?Looks like he’ll be getting his wish.

Our “constitutional scholar” also endorsed the right wing lieThat civil marriage in any way, shape or form has anything at all to do with religion. Between the First and Fourteenth Amendments, such a thing would be unconstitutional in the extreme.
But then, I am not at all surprised that the Fierce Advocate would promote such a lie.

I disagree that Obama’s statements have been contradictoryOnce you parse out the null phrases thrown in for scenery, the statements from the White House have been depressingly consistent.

I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised. Arizona’s behavior is appalling, and I’m boycotting the state.

Yep, state matter just likeSlavery was.