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By: Devona Walker (Add to your loop)
Fri, 01/22/2010 - 11:42

Demonstrators in California fight for gay marriage

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The morning after Obama was elected, many within the gay community had mixed feelings. Their man won the White House but the anti gay marriage Proposition 8 passed in California. In the last year, those feelings have soured. 

As a Senator, the Human Rights Campaign gave him a 89 out of 100 rating on gay rights issues. Even prior to inauguration, Obama posted the most aggressive list of gay rights priorities in U.S. history. Though he did not support gay marriage, Obama did support civil unions and said gay couples should have all the rights and privileges as heterosexual married couples. He vowed to end "Don’t ask don't tell" in the military. He vowed to strengthen and expand hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation. He vowed to pass federal laws allowing for gay adoption as well as expanding workplace protections to gays. The problem is: He hasn’t delivered. With the exception of Congress passing and Obama signing into law the Matthew Shepard Act, Obama has not fulfilled any of these promises. 

There is no doubt, Obama has been preoccupied with numerous inherited national crises -- two wars, the recession and the financial meltdown and the near banruptcy of the entire American automotive industry, etc. But his inaction smells more of political cowardice than conflicting priorities. The other problem: It is yet another example of a growing disconnect between Obama, the president and Obama as a candidate for the presidency. He campaigned as a leader but is governing like a politician. 

“The point of electing a president who pledged to actually do things is to hold him to account, and to see if he is willing to take any risk of any kind to actually do something,” wrote Andrew Sullivan, a gay rights advocate and political blogger, after Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign. “He says he favors equality for gay couples but said nothing tonight to support the initiatives in Maine or in Washington State or the struggle in Washington DC for marriage equality. That's a test of real sincerity on this matter. He failed it.”

“I didn't expect these issues to be front and center given his appalling inheritance; I know he has many other things on his plate; I didn't expect the moon... But the sad truth is: he is refusing to take any responsibility for his clear refusal to fulfill clear campaign pledges on the core matter of civil rights and has given no substantive, verifiable pledges or deadlines by which he can be held accountable,” Sullivan added.

Don’t Ask, not now, I’m busy.
Perhaps the most inexcusable of Obama’s gay rights backpeddling has been his silence on "don’t ask don’t tell" in the military. Even back in 1993 when Clinton enacted it, 44 percent of Amerians polled supported allowing gays to serve in the military. By 2001, 61 percent supported gays in the military. By 2008, 75 percent of those polled supported gays in the military. Public opinion outpaces the President’s leadership on the issue. It’s also not a legislative issue, but something entirely within his authority, and something he could easily change. Yet, Obama punted. Nearly one year ago, the White House said it would have to “study the implications for national security and enlist more support in Congress.”

"The Clinton experience makes a lot of folks [in the administration] apprehensive," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Fund, speaking about the Cliton-era failure to remove the ban on gays in the military. 

But gay rights represent an evolving movement and current expectations in no way resemble those of 1993. For the last decade, the gay community has been under assault. In 2004, there was the wedge-based political midterm that led 11 states to pass anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments. After the violent murder of Matthew Shepard, states hurried to institute hate crime statutes, yet 21 don’t include sexual orientation as a protected class. So patience, especially now that there is a president who actually engaged the gay community and made promises, is clearly waning. 

One could argue Obama had to shore up the banks because as a society, and I mean a global economic society, we are simply too dependent upon them to risk failure. You can argue that health care had to be legislated in Congress. You could argue that the stimulus, though flawed, was intended to address the jobs and unemployment crisis. You could even argue that financial reform will at least vice the largess and risk in the financial industry. 

However, it is hard to ignore how President Obama, who continues to speak with so much affection when asking the gay community for donations, has back-burnered just about every politically difficult but morally correct gay civil rights issue. 

Devona Walker is TheLoop21.com's senior financial/political reporter and blogger. She can be reached at devona@theloop21.com.

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