It is our privilege to call out our enemies, and our duty to call out our friends.
Barack Obama would vote No on Proposition 8. Here, in his own words, is why:
I think it's unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.
President Bill Clinton who, while campaigning for the Presidency, had promised to allow all citizens regardless of sexual orientation to serve openly in the military. Here is what we got instead:
Sexual orientation will not be a bar to service unless manifested by homosexual conduct. The military will discharge members who engage in homosexual conduct, which is defined as a homosexual act, a statement that the member is homosexual or bisexual, or a marriage or attempted marriage to someone of the same gender.
—The Pentagon's New Policy Guidelines on Homosexuals in the Military, The New York Times (July 20, 1993), p.A14.
Barack Obama has evidently learned from the Clintons not to promise what you cannot deliver. His statement to MTV is a friendly warning to the gay community that, unlike Dianne Feinstein, he will not be spending political capital on the radioactive.
Fear not, Barack, you have our total support. We know to take what we can get. There are many progressives sitting on the Obama bandwagon, and we are grateful enough to be on the bus at all that we will obligingly take our seat in the back.
But just between us, you are wrong. You are my hero and you have my vote, but you are not The One.
The One would have known better.
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3 comments:
I wonder if Prop. 8 would have failed if Obama had done a PSA, or even campaigned against it. I heard (from the Yes on 8 campaign) that 70% of black men, and 75% of black women, voted for Prop 8.
If this is true, it reminds of Jesse Jackson's famous comment about Hymietown, even though blacks have known no better supporters than Jews and gays.
I have heard of black people resentful of gays "coopting the black struggle". I assure them there is no need. We are not riding anyone's coattails.
But nor do we apologize for seeing such meteoric rise in acceptability. Ostracism to embrace in less than two generations! We do not want to waste any more lifes on this stupidity.
Unlike with Mormons, we understand the difficulties that members of Southern Baptist or AME Churches may have, and do not blame you presonally. We are proud of and want to learn from your struggle, not coopt it.
Meanwhile, Obama can lift the ban in gays in the military. Given our desparate need for reinforcements, this should be any easy sell in time of war.
Didn't Obama come out after the CA Supreme Court ruling and say he supported it and thought it was the right decision?
If so, I think what this illustrates is that many Democrats, while afraid to take a public stand in favor of gay marriage, will not stand in the way when it becomes a reality. They sound just like Republicans when you compare their public statements, but the crazies on the right will fight tooth and nail to deny human rights to gays. Democrats may pay lip service to the anti-gay marriage agenda, but I strongly believe it will only be under Democratic leadership that full human rights for gay people will be realized.
I have a feeling a lot is going to change in the next eight years.
Twin, you were right and I was wrong. It is now eight years later, and Obama actually really was The One.
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