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Obama Vows Unqualified Support for Gay-Rights Agenda
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama vowed his unwavering support for the full gay rights agenda Saturday night, saying that he'll push Congress to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military.
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the audience at the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner in Washington October 10, 2009. (REUTERS/Richard Clement) He also said that he'll work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as solely between a man and a woman, to guarantee that gay and lesbian couples get the same benefits as straight couples, and to ban anti-gay discrimination in the workplace.
"There are still laws to change and hearts to open," he told the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay-rights group. "This fight continues. And ... I'm here with you in that fight," he said to applause and cheers.
It's not an easy fight, he said, because questions of equal rights for gays and lesbians still "raise a great deal of emotion in this country." But he said "these issues go to the heart of who we are as a people."
He acknowledged that he hasn't delivered as fast as gay rights activists want.
"I appreciate your support," he said. "I also appreciate that many of you don't think progress has come fast enough. ... It's not for me to ask you to be patient," he said, any more than it was right for anyone 50 years ago to ask African-Americans to be patient.
Joe Solmonese, the president of the group, introduced Obama with praise for his commitment to the gay rights agenda.
"We have never had a stronger ally in the White House - never," Salmonese said.
But he added that many gays and lesbians are eager to see quicker results from a president who has long been on their side, and he noted that many will march in the capital on Sunday to demand action.
"This is ... a time of great impatience," he said, "and thousands will take to the streets of Washington tomorrow to express just that."
Obama insisted that some progress has been made on the gay agenda, noting last Thursday's vote in the House of Representatives to expand federal "hate" crimes laws to include additional penalties for crimes based on "sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability." The federal government now calls for tougher penalties in crimes motivated by a victim's race, color, religion or national origin.
"This bill is set to pass, and I will sign it into law," Obama said.
On the question of gays serving openly in the military, he said that he's working to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy adopted in 1993 that allows gays to serve as long as they keep their sexual orientation secret.
"I will end 'don't ask, don't tell.' That's my commitment to you," Obama said, to loud applause.
Last year, more than 600 people were forced out of the armed services under the policy.
"We are moving ahead on 'don't ask don't tell." Obama said. "We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who've stepped forward to serve America ... especially at a time we're fighting two wars."
He said he's working with the Pentagon and congressional leaders to enact legislation repealing the policy, apparently referring to a bill introduced by Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., that so far has 176 cosponsors.
Obama also put the White House squarely behind efforts to protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination. "Nobody in America should be fired because they're gay ... We're going to put a stop to it," he said.
For gay and lesbian couples, he said he's already ordered the federal government to grant as many of the benefits offered married couples as possible under current law. And he said he's prodding Congress to do more.
"I've called on Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage act and pass the domestic partners benefits bill," he said.
Despite his vows, Obama did not spell out how much political capital he would, or could, use to push the gay rights agenda at a time he's reworking the war strategy in Afghanistan, pushing for a health care overhaul and struggling to save a climate bill in the Senate.
"I understand the president has a crowded agenda, but I have been serving under this law for 16 years," said Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, before the speech. He's an Iraq war hero who is set to be discharged under the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, and he went into the evening looking for a more solid commitment from the president.
"We have no doubt President Obama intends on correcting the mistake made in 1993 with the passage of DADT," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the group. "But we've seen no action, and the clock is ticking. A clear timeline from this White House and Congress is urgently needed."
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52 Comments so far
Show AllPush Congress? Push that huge leaden corrupt pile of futility? Isn't he the Commander in Chief? Why doesn't he just do it?
Here's the wording:
"Nobody will be denied a job or promotion in the armed forces because of sexual orientation, provided it takes place between consenting adults. Anyone who coerces or pressures another for sex against their will will be prosecuted." (Might as well take care of the rape problem at the same time.)
I don't want to hear that he has to be nice to Congress in order to let some of them grandstand for the folks at home about the correct genital alignments and love specifications. Being nice to Congress doesn't work.
Joe
The problem is that this is not a concern of the public at large at all. Its far down their list of concerns.
Pushing it now might just get it caught up in the general push back coming from the health care, cap & trade, immigration proposals. There is a very big backlash coming if they are able to push their insurance health care bill thru.
He should take that 88 pound gold medal he gets from Nobel and start beating heads with it.
Iraq "war hero?" Unless he stopped his fellow soldiers from killing civilians, I can't imagine anyhong "heroic" that an American soldier could have done in the unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It's time to start denouncing the misuse of the word "hero" when it comes to "our" war criminals. Only those member of our military who have refused to participate in these illegal wars of aggression are "heroes."
"Only those member of our military who have refused to participate in these illegal wars of aggression are "heroes."
Thats a real misuse of "hero." There isn't anything heroic about refusing a duty you volunteered for. Nobody drafted these guys.
But you are correct, there are very, very very few hero's. Just a bunch od scared guys. And you can see a real hero on either side.
Refusing an order to do an illegal act in the face of enormous pressure to conform IS heroic.
thanks monroematt,Obama's use of hero is nothing short of pure linguistic prostitution it is sad. I would like to believe it was an error rather than a slip these are war crimes we are dealing with. I am happy to do time for my statement I stand by it in a million years from now. (right or wrong I am with my country),no fucking way. otherwise i will be the average German plumber,nurse or postman in 1941
if my father, mother, teacher, priest or brother is a assassin i will stop him-here no matter what, I won't torture, kill, torment, execute but I will stop the horror before it becomes a habit although it is half way there already.
I am using firefox mozilla to right this, you see while I was typing these notes the dictionary offered to correct my misspelling of obama by suggesting the use of Osama how ironic. how long are we to give Obama's administration to navigate the ship away from impact point?
/we may have a rough idea about leaders what is important is what's behind him-her.an innocent question motivated by, the utter absence of accountability by the Cheney's, Kessingers, rices, the Industrial Military Complex and some of the current leaders action, consensus and ground connectedness. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, make no mistake the invasion has already started, and the many dozens of other countries already occupied like an insect caught in a web of a killer spider through economic measures, policies, military bases or simply civil wars often created by entities like the schools of the Americas.
A military base is no different from a bullet they both made of steal they both enter a body it create a rupture, it bleeds a haemorrhage follows fragmentation takes place, decomposition, the body cease to be until the foreign body is out. that is valid for a woman a man a child a sacred land.
"Obama Vows Unqualified Support for Gay-Rights Agenda"
Until it becomes politically expedient not to. Which will be Monday morning.
Tuesday morning. Monday is a Federal Holiday.
Smiles!
The GLBT corporate capitalism supporting elites of the Human Rights Campaign clearly operate a politics on behalf of the US global military/financial empire. They seem blind to the ravages that the empire inflicts on poor peoples around the globe including here at home. Thus they are unable to make clear moral judgements on the endless wars with their enormous human and financial costs. Putting great effort in getting GLBT people into the ranks of torturers, murderers, and remote drone pilots of the US military operations becomes one of their central issues. And what will HRC have to say to the abandoned broken bodies and minds sent home from the Empire's wars? A fraction of the costs of the US global military operations would provide basic healthcare for all but HRC elites aren't about to rock the boat of the military dominated juggernaut of empire. Indeed they want to be a central part of it, equal partners in the machinery of US global high tech terrorism drone bombing the weddings, 12th century mud huts, and funerals of hapless peasant farmers wherever the tentacles of empire extend.
Supposedly representing a GLBT community that has suffered a major health crisis with the AIDS pandemic, HRC and other corrupt gay elites do not join the fight for a single payer healthcare system for all, but hedges its healthcare statements to align with the big corporate money that supports it and carefully plays games with the endless big monied corruptions of imperial capital politics.
And even as the fundamental rights of all citizens are compromised by the Patriot Act, loss of habeas corpus, endless unchecked surviellance intrusions, continuing extensions of the powers of a "unitary executive" (dictatorship) begun under Bush and continuing under Obama, denial of access for public trial of those charged by claims of "state secrets", thus to conceal further the tortures inflicted on many hapless victims, HRC and other groups remain silent. One would think that there would be an understanding that GLBT people have been denied basic rights for years and would thus speak against these fundamental losses. For anyone.
So the current front man for the empire has graced their fancy dinner with his presence and may indeed work out some way to end DADT especially as the wars of empire keep expanding and more and more bodies are needed. Iraq and Afghanistan today, Pakistan tomorrow, maybe Venezuela or Boliva next year. Maybe the upscale income folks at HRC would like to make a voluntary tax assessment to finance GLBT equality in the military machine---and also to tend the broken bodies and minds that return.
Courtjester: was it just coincidence, do you reckon, that the "bill" that Obama will sign with expanded hate crimes punishments for GLBT victims is actually a rider to a massive defense appropriations bill, inserted no doubt to salve the consciences (or scare their pants off from expected GLBT defections from them)for "progressives" in voting to continue Obamawars?
Cute way of lessening lib-left opposition to his awful performance on every other front. A little sugar makes the poison go down easier.
I saw the speech live on CNN last night and it was typical Obama, beautiful words, no substance. The man is a serial liar, he has absolutely no shame in making promises he has no intention of fulfilling and million still fall for it.
It dismays me to think that after 40 years of the modern lesbian/gay movement the dominant national organization is the most conservative, single-issue, centralized and class-bound group we've ever had and that the two central issues are marriage and the military. We certainly didn't start that way. We rejected the decaying institution of marriage and offered alternatives to it. As a movement born within opposition to the war in Vietnam and to militarism in general, we most definitely rejected war. I went to the first national gay march in 1979 but, no, thanks anyway, this radical old queen won't be in Washington this time around.
David - good points. Marriage, as we know it, developed from old relationships having to do with property, paternity and the authority of religious institutions; later a glaze of romance was added in the popular mind. People choose to get married for all kinds of reasons, both practical and idealistic. So now we have a mixed-up system that causes confusion and unnecessary conflict.
I believe that the government should provide civil unions for everyone, straight or gay. The civil union contract should limit itself to governmental type issues such as protection of children, taxation, property arrangements, sharing rights, health decisions. In no way should the government judge the fitness of sexual or partnership relations between consenting adults. If two people choose to make a legal relationship, it should be their choice.
Marriage could be an optional add-on based on any religious or emotional choice or affiliation of the couple. I believe our problems stem from mixing up the emotional and moral aspects of marriage with government regulations. They should be two different things. If marriage were separate, religious institutions could define it as they wished, and debates of a spiritual or moral nature could take place within each religious group. The general public, including non-believers would still have a uniform civil option.
We are mixing up two things, the spiritual and the civil, the church and state, and it results in some people being deprived of rights and / or the government forcing religions to accept things they do not want.
But right now we do not have a rational separation of church and state when it comes to marriage, so unless that changes, let there be equality in marriage for all.
The military is just a bad employer engaged in a bad business. I would like to see it disappear. Meanwhile, women, all races and gay people should have equal rights in the workplace.
Joe
I favor civil unions as well, Joe. After all, what's the big deal? Maybe those companies that cover 'spouses' for various reasons (like health insurance companies) don't want it?
We'll see...
Jim Glover: indeed, we'll see. But what we should have learned by now from Obama is that his announcement of his "unwavering support" for something is a harbinger of his abandoning any involvement in bringing that thing to fruition. Think affordable health care, climate change control, immigration reform, Employee Free Choice Act,reforming NAFTA, Israeli freezing of settlements, and you name what-else. Obama seems to operate with a peculiar idea of the relation between promise and action: as long as I have promised something and thereby given people "hope," I have no need to try to deliver on the promise, I can always cite things like the "great emotion in the country" against what I have proposed to do. Hell, didn't I get a Nobel Peace Prize in exactly that way? Looks like I'll be able to ride that white horse of Hope right through the next election. We can always blame the "great emotion" of crazies of the right wing for any undelivered promises.
Jerry,
In my opinion if McCain/Palin were there the rights rider would not be included and the Settlements Issue would be lost to a new war with Iran.
We'll see
Jim, why bring up McCain and Palin? That election has already been lost by them and what they would or would not have done should have no bearing on assessment of what Obama is likely to do...unless you want to take that slippery slope of justifying anything Obama does with a favorable comparison what the other guys might have done. When you say "we'll see," the seeing refers to nothing but Obama, the other is a distraction from that assessment.
I don't follow sports much anymore, Jerry, but the first thing that came to my mind was the General Manager's "Vote of Confidence", which invariably equated to "Kiss of Death".
And the wretched George McGovern's pledge to stand behind Thomas Eagleton a "thousand percent".
And I didn't see the Mel Gibson film, but my parochial-school childhood overactive imagination created a mental video clip of Judas strutting away pleased as punch with himself-- perhaps whistling, if whistling was a habit in First-Century Aramaic culture-- while Jesus absent-mindedly blots off Judas' saliva from his cheek with the back of his hand, shaking his head imperceptibly as he watches Judas depart.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obama = LIAR
I remember McGovern's "1000%" support for poor Eagleton...just before he dropped him like a used kleenex.
We need to reform childhood edu in this country --so that when kids grow to adulthood they can think clearly and not fall for the lies!
Perhaps military enlistments in the U.S. aren't high enough, so the Obama administration can do this full rights thing for gays in the U.S., hoping this'll drive plenty of them to enlist.
As for laws needing changing and hearts needing to open, Obama has a serious problem, hypocrisy. He doesn't abide by the most important of national and international laws, treaties and conventions, and clearly doesn't have an open heart for considering the millions of Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and others that his administration is committing military escalation against. The latter's happening on global scale, including "Star Wars" sort of militarisation. And this involves build-up against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and more, but while these specific countries are the main targets in the Asian area. Pakistan's also targeted. The major U.S. embassy planned for Islamabad is one of the examples, and it's a U.S. imposition that many or most Pakistanis evidently aren't happy about. They're against everything the U.S. has been and is doing there, and is going to be doing there.
He may be entirely serious about ensuring full rights to the gays of the U.S., and the article does start by referring to these rights applying to U.S. military service. According to news reports, apparently many gays in the U.S. demanded the equal "right" to be able to enlist and serve in Iraq in 2003 and possibly (or probably) since, without any concern (at all) for the fact that it was a totally criminal war. They seemed to be quite vociferous about this; fanatically demanding this actually non-right, since it's never a right to partake in conducting wars of aggression.
I guess plenty of them would welcome Obama's proposed "full rights" changes for these people in the military; enough to draw them to enlist.
It's surely not out of true kindness that he is or says he is going to do this.
Numbers? Maybe this change will cause non-gays to start to refuse to enlist in greater numbers than those who have been refusing. If this happens, then I wonder by how much overall enlistment numbers will change. Up or down? After all, a person doesn't need to hate homosexuals to not want to be surrounded by soldiers holding hands, kissing each other, looking at each other in sexual ways, etcetera.
A concern: Islam and U.S. gay soldiers fighting a war of aggression? Sending gays who are war-mongers (for wars of aggression, too) to wars in Muslim lands doesn't sound like a good idea. These U.S. gays could seek to treat the Muslims worse than they're already treated by U.S. and NATO forces; as extra punishment for Islamic laws against homosexuality. I certainly hope this doesn't happen. We don't want to make the wars more criminal than they already are, which is already going to happen with the increasing of U.S. troops by 60,000 or more.
If Obama's use of the "open heart" wording could be believed, then he'd immediately stop the imperialism, corporatism, and wars that he clearly has no intention of doing. "Open heart"? My ass.
It is well past time to put up or shut up.
Talk minus action equals zero.
blah blah blah.....so tired of the talk, where's some F'ing action
Stop vowing to act and just get things done.
Like Maher said at least Bush (and the masters behind him) had the ability to push his (their) insane agenda through. Maybe the difference is Bush had numerous puppeteers relentlessly pulling the strings and Obama does not...
The Obama administration may seem, to even many people, to not be "pushing things through", as if there's no real action, however this sort of perception is also very much due to silent msm "news" media and alternative media. The Admin. is pushing things through and along, at escalated scale, and this includes increased militarisation of the U.S., and NATO, and globally so.
When actions occur, but they're not reported on, then we can certainly have the impression that the actions aren't happening; but they are.
Action is not lacking with the Obama administration. There's a hell of a lot of action from them, and enough or more of it is very underreported; and it's not good actions, but they're actions nevertheless.
Where action is lacking is from the public, which needs to become [revolutionary], in real terms; not violent, but still revolutionary, strongly and firmly so. To expect this from a population of people who are worried about their own economic woes, while always refusing to elect real political candidates, such as Ralph Nader, f.e., then it's difficult to imagine such a population becoming truly revolutionary. They choose "lessers" of evil without being able to prove the "lesser" part at all, yet still pretend that their choices are nevertheless of "lesser" evil sort; all while neglecting, or acting as if neglecting, that evil is evil!
Revolutionary? My ass!
The public needs to become revolutionary, which requires much dedication, persistence, ..., not just whimpy complaints; not a public the real ruling "elites" don't need to worry about fearing. Make the earth tremble for the ruling "elites"; seriously tremble.
Just remember everything Bush Hog (with lipstick) Obama's given UNQUALIFIED (ALL RIGHT) support to (e.g., single-payer, "when We the People gave DEM back the Congress and (HIS) presidency")! Like PEACE, their performance is much less than unequivocal!! UNQUALIFIED, indeed!
Like the $680bn the U.S. Congress recently approved for U.S. militarisation and war during this Obama presidency, f.e.; besides telling us enough other important or critically important things we get, overall, little reporting on.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky's article tells us about this $680bn.
"Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth",
by Michel Chossudovsky, Oct. 11, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15622
Maybe he'll get the Nobel Gay Rights Prize for promising to end "Don't ask, don't tell" while personally continuing the despicable, barbaric, bigoted policy as commander-in-chief, when he could end it immediately -- sort of like getting the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping 120,000 troops in Iraq and escalating in Afghanistan against a country that is geometrically weaker than the US economically and militarily and has a friendly puppet government.
All of this crap the Obamaniacs are pushing that he can't immediately make the change is untrue. He's commander-in-chief. He can order his subordinates (the Joint Chiefs, for example) not to enforce "Don't Ask Don't Tell". He can pardon anyone who is prosecuted for refusing to enforce "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Bottom line, as with everything else, Obama is always looking elsewhere to get things done, as if he's not the President, but just a cheerleader.
In this instance he is a homophobic bigot, as he has in his hands the power to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell" as commander-in-chief today, now, and instead chooses to run an operation in which his inaction causes heros to be thrown out of the military solely because they are gay. This is not Clinton's policy or Bush's policy anymore. Obama is throwing gays out of the military while making speeches against the policy he employs. He's a two-bit, bigoted, dishonest hypocrite whose elooquent speeches make a mockery of the issues about which he speaks.
Well, perhaps this 'civil rights lawyer' can give is a LEGAL reason to support his jim crow platform of violating the 1st amendment for the nefarious purpose of denying a "fundamental' right guaranteed under the 14th amendment? Psst, that's two constitutional violations. See Untangling Barack Obama's audcious mumbo jumbo at http://ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=guest_op&article=73
Ecrasez l'infame!
And not to worry! He surely will repeal DADT. Even when it was just a 'policy' the government was more than happy to draft gay men for Vietnam or any war. When he needs cannon fodder for his Afghan war gays will do just fine.
Many times leftists make the mistake of assuming gays are automatically leftist too. The are plenty of conservative gays - and even the non-conservative ones tend to be heavily reprented among the bourgeois members of the investor-class.
So these gays are already part of the economic class that Obama loves the most anyway.
Generally a "gay" person with more radical economic politics will self-describe as "queer" or "radical queer", never the bourgeois-sounding "gay".
About bloody time. It's not like they're asking for much...just the acknowledgment that they exist equally as other humans.
Yes, they demand equal rights; like the many U.S. "gays" who demanded the equal right to enlist and serve in the war on Iraq, a totally criminal war of aggression, mass genocide, murder, toxic pollution that'll radiologically and otherwise toxically poison Iraqis for ages to come. Damn, equal rights come first, right?
Or they could do like Gore Vidal, a self-admitted homosexual, who says he does not give a damn regarding the gay right to marry, and ... so on. What has him concerned is the hijacking or trashing of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. militarism, wars of aggression, imperialism, etcetera. Like he says, he's focused on the truly important issues, not the bla bla bla regarding the civic right to marry or not, etc.
I have no sympathy for all of this "gay" bla bla bla crap. What I care about are real human rights and as long as homosexual are protected under law like everyone else with respect to no one having any right to aggress, attack, ... homosexuals due to their sexual orientation, then I don't care about the rest.
People who think that by making marriage and military enlistment or service rights equal for "gays" is important are IDIOTS! They are fools who think there really is a way to make this world perfect with such nonsensical issues or ... whatever they are resolved so that the "gays" can civically have the recognition of marriage and serve in totally criminal wars of aggression, imperialism, etcetera.
IDIOTS!
On paper, we have equal rights for all citizens, however racial discrimination hasn't stopped; and there's a lot of imperialist, bourgeois, fascist, ... action against migrant workers trying to escape death through poverty that our country placed these people in and which is a wrong our country refuses to correct, provide real reparations for.
Imperialist Americans are all over the place; many pretend to not be this and still prove that they actually are, a bunch of imperialist, bourgeois, etcetera, idiots.
How about telling the gays to shut the heck up and for everyone to focus on the really critical issues?! Too much to ask, I know; but do it anyway!
Gay and other minority issues are human issues, just as women's issues are human issues. We are not idiots to demand basic civil rights FOR ALL. You are asleep at the wheel and really need to drink some chamomile tea or take a stress management class. Your cup of cynical hatred runneth over.
BS
As long as there are institutional practices that set gays apart from everyone else, then that will encourage aggression against them, because they are visibly being made different from others.
Should gays not adopt children? That's a major prejudice that they face. In many places, gays are not allowed to visit each other in the hospital if they are terminally ill, even if they are lovers/partners or whatever, because that's only for "family". And don't forget all the religious crazies out there that teach their kids homosexuality is evil, a sin, and all gays will go to hell, so what's the problem with treating them like shit if they're eternally condemned anyway? It's much more than, as you put it, being allowed to go be imperialists.
Yes, we still have racial prejudice. And that is why we still have Affirmative Action policies, and that is why many southern states cannot change their election laws without DoJ approval, because they had a history of excluding black voters. Giving them full legal equality is just the beginning, monitoring must be done afterward to make sure it holds up.
"As long as there are institutional practices that set gays apart from everyone else, then that will encourage aggression against them, because they are visibly being made different from others."
BS. There's no more aggression or violence against "gays" than there is against others, and plenty of "elites", in political office anyway, who are "gay" do more to harm "gays" in general than other people do.
"Should gays not adopt children?" IMO, no, however my view might change with additional sociological research, f.e.
Re. hospital visitation, they of course should be allowed to visit each other.
Re. civil unions and marriage, who cares; I would not stand against this. However,
adopting children born of other people is a separate or additional question, not automatic, imo.
"And don't forget all the religious crazies out there that teach their kids homosexuality is evil, a sin, and all gays will go to hell, so what's the problem with treating them like shit if they're eternally condemned anyway? It's much more than, as you put it, being allowed to go be imperialists."
The "gays" living near such religious people can choose someplace else to live and get away from the religious fanatics. It's surely the easiest solution, if these "gays" can afford the relocation, that is.
And I think the government could make it a criminal offence to teach anyone that it's evil to be homosexual, etc. Hate teachings is what these are and all hate or heinous teachings should be punishable under law. This is for prejudicial, racist, ... kinds of heinous teaching, for, f.e., it's not hate speech to say that the politicians are acting in evil ways, with their fraudulent politics, wars of aggression, economic thievery, etcetera.
However, I think Gore Vidal is much more right than most of you are. He's not wrong to say that "gay" marriage is and should be a non-issue for "gays". He's not for supporting aggression, ... against "gays", but he correctly doesn't hype the "gay" marriage stuff. He lived all of his life without being able to legally marry a "lover" and this doesn't bother him at all.
Not having the marriage right hasn't prevented "gays" from having jobs, high-paying ones, included. It hasn't prevented them from being able to own homes. Etcetera.
Instead of diverting people's attention from the truly critical issues before us, Gore Vidal chooses to focus on these and not "gay" marriage bla-bla. Mature "gays" can live quite comfortably without the marriage right being enacted through government law. However, some rights that are denied, like the hospital visitation example you mentioned, should be respected. It's nonsensical to disallow such rights. Whether it's family members, other close relatives, "gay" partners, or just good friends wanting to visit people who are hospitalised, all of these persons should be allowed to visit. What if someone's elderly and isn't "gay" and doesn't have family, why should a good friend be denied the right to visit?
The marriage right is not one I'd stand against, but I wouldn't divert people's attention from truly critical issues for this. I'd just say to enact the law and get this over with so that we can cease to have all of the complaints against the law not being enacted.
If a "gay" couple had their own children, then this'd be no one else's business, as long as the children aren't abused, in which case it always becomes society's business. But for adopting other children? I might vote to have this additional law, but only to get everyone to shut up about this and then move on to focusing on the critical issues before us.
Most people pay little attention to the critical issues. Even writers writing a LOT on the crimes of torture hardly write about the most critical war issue of all and which is the reason that the torture crimes exist to begin with; the wars of aggression, which'll always have many related crimes being committed.
There are the wars, massive famines, starvation, extreme poverty, environmental destruction and poisoning, and possibly other critical issues that far outweigh the "gay" issues; FAR outweighing those. People never paid any attention to the fact of the large wave of importing hi-tech workers to literally, blatantly, and really [replace] the hiring of professionals and graduating students in the U.S., which is a serious criminal racket "blessed" by the government which still does hardly anything to correct this crime against U.S. citizens and immigrant residents. This is a greater issue than whether "gays" are legally allowed to marry, or not, but this issue is often treated as if more important than really critical issues.
Since we can't get unity for the critically needed corrections and reparations, and the U.S. government knows about the issues, but constantly chooses to not make the corrections and provided the reparations, it's comical that people waste time with the "gay" marriage question. Get the law passed, if you can, but I wouldn't waste energy and, therefore, time on the issue other than stating as done in this and my prior post. I wouldn't spend days on the issue.
zmann, I think the touchiest issue is child raising. People have some deep reservations about it. We have little empirical evidence about the effects of gay parents on child development. We have plenty about harsh or negligent parents, addicts or stupid selfish parents, but we don't do much to remedy those situations.
All I have to say is that gays do not often have children by accident! The gay couples I know who have children are highly motivated fine parents. Aside from dealing with some problems with peers, the kids seem more than OK to me. But kids can have problems with peers over parents' race, or parents being too fat, too rich, too poor, too foreign, or anything. With proper support, children benefit from learning to stand their ground.
Joe
Ouch! This is the first I've noticed your creepy, vicious homophobia. Bummer.
Yeah, I know that it's not "really" homophobia; it's just a deeply-felt political judgment that the canard of "gay rights" is "hurting the progressive cause".
This reminds me of an occasion many years ago, when I almost fell off my chair at a social gathering after hearing an otherwise intelligent and well-informed "progressive" fiftysomething relative observe that HIS generation had to deal with really "big" issues, e.g. the Vietnam War and "civil rights".
Now, he pontificated, the college kids were left with only intellectualized, "manufactured" causes like animal cruelty and gay rights. He didn't see himself or his attitude as "homophobic", of course-- I suppose that to him "homophobia" was also a meaningless "manufactured" agitprop slur.
This must have been after the Matthew Shepard murder, because I couldn't resist noting that, "manufactured" though it may seem to him, my politically-savvy relative might want to give more weight to the importance of gay rights, considering that Amerikans were still being crucified for being gay.
Sheesh.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obama vows? Well, you can kiss that promise goodbye!
Yeah, it's like a Yankee manager getting a "Vote of Confidence" from George Steinbrenner.
I haven't reached my mid-fifties, but I seem to be writing about parochial school memories a lot lately. And here I go again!
At least this one is objectively pro-nun, for a change: the nuns covered the topic of "vows" in catechism class. We were taught that a "vow", or an "oath", for that matter, is never, never, NEVER to be made or used lightly.
From a religious perspective, vows are literally sacred; they are at the core of important sacraments: marriage (!), holy orders. Even routine sacraments like penance involve vows of contrition and circumspection that are relatively minor, but still not to be made casually or lightly. Oaths and vows made in vain are sinful.
Having remembered my lesson well, and finding an abiding kernel of universal wisdom in it, even as an agnostic freethinker, I'm generally amused by the worldly use of the term "vows" by both politicians and the media. I realize that "vow" is a very handy word for headline-composing and copy, and that it the person "vowing" doesn't often formally SAY, "I vow..."
Still, "vow" is thrown around so casually that it's been cheapened to death: Councilman Vows Action on Smelly Dumpsters!
Obama's "vow" is also a mockery of the concept; PRAGMATISTS don't VOW-- "real" vows lock the vower into principled behavior, and we can't have THAT.
I guess I should feel relieved that there's far more than my own flight from the flock to keep my poor parochial-school sisters spinning in their graves.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"Joe Solmonese, the president of the group, introduced Obama with praise for his commitment to the gay rights agenda."
"But he added that many gays and lesbians are eager to see quicker results from a president who has long been on their side".
OBAMA HAS NEVER BEEN IN SUPPORT OF GAY RIGHTS. NOT AS A SENATOR OR IN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES.
DENNIS KUCINICH IS THE ONLY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THAT WILL PROVIDE FULL EQUAL RIGHTS TO GAYS INCLUDING MARRIAGE, NOT JUST CIVIL UNION.
"We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who've stepped forward to serve America ... especially at a time we're fighting two wars."
OBAMA WILL USE HIS POWER HERE TO REAP THE BENEFITS OF GAYS IN THE MILITARY. HIS INTEREST IS NOT TO PROVIDE EQUAL RIGHTS BUT TO PROVIDE MORE CANNON FODDER TO BENEFIT HIS OWN SELF-INTEREST AND THOSE OF THE WAR PROFITEERS.
Talk is cheap (see also "compassionate conservative")
If he would simply order the Joint Chiefs to end discrimination against gays in the military and to give him a report on how they planned to do it by X date it would mean something. Otherwise it is little more than a sop for the gullible.
O has a remarkable gift. All he has to do is expel a little wind and make the same empty promises he made a year ago, and the members of his cult will buy it lock stock and barrel. No actual action or results are required . . . only words.
He's like the old TV preacher in NY, the Rev Ike, who always talked about "Pie in the Sky, Bye and Bye."
Based on what he's done to "improve" health care my advice to all gay people, in fact any one who is not a married heterosexual is to flee the country immediately lest "for your own good" he require you to have mandatory monthly HIV testing at your own expense.
If it had been left to a substantial part of the (white) voters racial equality would still not have been achieved, so what's Obama waiting for? After all: as long gays are recognized as human beings, they should be protected from the discrimination the US-government, among others, is subjecting them to.
Walk the walk, please!!
Promises, promises....a real Commander-in-Chief would issue an edict!
Methinks Obama needs more soldiers for his wars. Brilliant really, killing 2 birds with one stone. What a great honor it already is to serve in the US military.