"I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage... I believe in civil unions but it should not be called marriage."
Then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said that during a campaign stop in Nelsonville, Ohio a day before the Super II Tuesday primary in March 2008. The great puzzle then is why so many are so hot at President Obama for backing the Defense of Marriage Act. He has not backed a step away from his Ohio campaign stump words.
His unshakeable personal, political and legal belief is that the only marriage that can be called marriage is between a man and a woman. This has absolutely nothing to do with his solid, and at times outspoken, tout of anti-discrimination, civility, and just plain human respect for gay rights. He has backed that in speeches and legislation 18 times before he grabbed the White House.
This still doesn't change his firm belief that marriage is marriage only when it's between a man and a woman. Gay groups, the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and some congresspersons, can scream at him to withdraw the Justice Department's brief filed seeking the dismissal of the legal challenge to the DOMA in a federal court in California. They can bash him as a flip flop and a betrayer of his campaign promises on gay rights. This still ignores the bitter truth that candidate Obama and now President Obama has been the paragon of consistency, even honesty, in opposing same sex marriage. This has nothing to do with politics, but his personal belief layered over with a tinge of religious interpretation, since he's cited conflicted passages from the Bible, to square his support of gay rights with his opposition to legalizing same sex marriage.
Obama's rock solid belief in traditional marriage was plainly evident at the opening gun of his presidential campaign in South Carolina in January 2008. He ignored loud protests and shouts for him to dump gay-challenged gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from his three date barnstorm tour through the state. The show complete with McClurkin went on. Critics naively chalked the McClurkin-Obama link up to his frantic need to grab the black vote away from rival Hillary Clinton. Politics no doubt was at play big in the McClurkin decision. But McClurkin was also a wildly popular and compelling singer and preacher who stirred the passions of hard nosed evangelical blacks in South Carolina and other must win states. McClurkin also stirred Obama's religious passions as well. Though McClurkin pleaded that he was not anti-gay, it did not change one whit his view and that of all other black evangelicals that same sex marriage is a Biblical abomination.
Bush masterfully tapped that homophobic sentiment among fundamentalist religious blacks in 2000 in part with McClurkin and even more masterfully in 2004 again with McClurkin and the top gun mega black preachers in Ohio and Florida. He tapped it so masterfully that Bush's naked pander to gay bashing with the GOP spawned anti-gay marriage initiative in Ohio did much to win over a big chunk of black evangelical leaning voters to him. A Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies poll in 2004 found that blacks by a far larger margin than the overall population opposed gay marriage. This raised a few eyebrows among some political pundits, but there were much earlier signs of blacks' relentless hostility to gays and gay rights.
In Florida and Wisconsin, Republicans aggressively courted and wooed key black religious leaders. They dumped big bucks from Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program into church-run education and youth programs. Black church leaders not only endorsed Bush but in some cases they actively worked for his re-election, and encouraged members of their congregations to do the same.
Polls show that more Americans than ever say that they support civil rights for gays, and a torrent of gay themed TV shows present non-stereotypical depictions of gays. However, this increased tolerance has not dissipated the hostility that far too many blacks, especially hard core Bible thumping blacks, feel toward gay marriage. California Proposition 8 backers quickly wised up to this and corraled a pack of fundamentalist black religious leaders in Los Angeles and other areas to stir up their flock against legalizing gay marriage. Then they got ticked at Obama for the White House's stone silence when the state supreme court backed the measure. The White House silence was no surprise.
The other big knock against Obama is that he didn't have to do anything on the DOMA; that he could have easily kept the White House's nose out of it by letting the legal challenge to it run its course. Other presidents have done that when they thought a law was unconstitutional or unjust.
This argument is tone deaf to what Obama has said and feels about traditional marriage too. Given that conviction his defense of the DOMA should not surprise or anger anyone.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard weekly in Los Angeles Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com
When will these smarmy pundits stop insulting our intelligence? "Legal belief"? Barack Obama has never once, not even once, provided even one LEGAL argument to support his denial of equality. This man holds himself out as a 'civil rights lawyer." Please! Can we ask this so-called 'civil rights lawyer' to give us at least ONE legal reason for denial of equality. YES WE CAN! But why is no one getting to the real issue? Why is everyone doing a tap dance? I agree that this could be fully expected but not for the reason you proffer.
See "Obama, DOMA, Treachery, Betrayal and Invidious Gay Jim Crow Laws" at http://open.salon.com/blog/john_mortimer_esq/2009/06/19/obama_doma_treachery_betrayal_and_invidious_gay_jim_crow
And see "Untangling Barack Obama's audacious mumbo jumbo" at http://ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=guest_op&article=73
So when do people get to challenge "fundamentalist black religious leaders" about their intolerance? Is it really OK to allow the people who've benefited from the civil rights movement the most to join in on the oppression of another minority?
Civil rights are basic to all people, and should not have to pass any religious litmus test to be accepted, especially among other minorities.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lane-hudson/the-gay-guide-to-obamas-r_b_216683.html
You are so far off the mark on what we are upset about. I guess you would have thought differently a mere 30 years ago, when your rights were still be impugned by LAW. We do not expect the issues of unfairness to end once the laws change, we have seen in the past in the struggle for civil equality by African Americans, that the problems do not stop just because the law get's changed, but these laws are wrong, and a Constitutional Scholar as we have in the White House should know that. Or maybe he agrees with Bush and thinks that equality and freedom mean only what he says they mean.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-hogarth/obamas-doma-defense-unacc_b_215718.html
Here's a snip from Paul Hogarths piece:
"Most lawyers at the Justice Department who write these briefs are civil servants who cannot be replaced by a new President, and one of the authors was in fact a right-wing holdover from the Bush years. But Tony West, an Obama appointee and the brother-in-law of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, allowed it to be filed in court - and his name appears on the front page."
From the link YOU provide:
The Administration argued that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not bar states from denying out-of-state gay marriages, and they cited prior cases of out-of-state marriages that were between (a) an uncle and niece, (b) a 16-year-old and adult and (c) first cousins. Comparing same-sex marriage with incest and pedophilia is what one would expect from a Republican Administration, and for a court to agree with such reasoning is unhelpful..
If you answer yes to the question, then you leave yourself open to the possibility that you must agree if the government should decide to interfere in your private life on an issue that is important to you. If you believe the government should interfere in the private lives of it's citizens then you have to recognize the danger that belief places all of us in, and open your eyes to the way it could affect you personally.
If you answer no to that question, then you must find a way to support the LGBT community in attaining the same rights and responsibilities as the heterosexual community, including the use of the common law word "marriage".
Rick Lord
And the Afrcian-American religious leaders need to face up to their sin of PRIDE. Lots and lots of PRIDE. They wear the CIVIL RIGHTS mantle as if it was theirs exclusively, when it's not. And lets face it, there's still a stigma of somehow being associated with the gays, even when there are obvious parallels in the struggle for CIVIL RIGHTS. As if gays wanting CIVIL RIGHTS somehow waters down or lessens the value of the black struggle.
What do they tell a lesbian parishoner? "You should be proud of the struggle for racial equality and gender equality. But the gay thing? Eh, not a real issue."
It's what happens when voters are (a) immature and (b) intellectually a few Tiki lamps short of a luau.
It's painful in the short term sometimes, but in the long run it's the best way to run one's life, business, country.
Obama, courted the LGBT vote during the campaign only to back away from his promises after the inauguration. Doing so, he had broadened the centrist and right--of--centrist base.
He reminds me of someone who continues to date a person he really really does not care for . . . Until someone better comes along.
When his actions as President match his words as a candidate, I will think better of him. And so will my check book.
If we took your view, then Gay rights battles wouldnt' have been fought at all this decade. We would have shut up and said "Ok, we have a president who thinks gay sex should be a criminal act, maybe we should be quiet", but no, we went to the courts and the legislature and the streets and demanded rights. And guess what, it worked.. It worked so well that now we have the luxury to argue over federal benefits when in 2003 we were arguing about Sodomy laws.
Lyndon Johnson didn't give one flying duck about passing civil rights legislation, but he was pushed into doing it by the nobility of the cause and the sheer number and loudness of the voices in protest. Gays will accomplish the same.
And their public stance on shellfish......also listed as an "abomination" and the rest of Leviticus Chapter 11
Proverbs: Lying lips are abomination to the LORD:but they that deal truly are his delight.
Deuteronomy: The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment:for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property." (Leviticus 25:44-45)
And the list goes on and on.....but in your case selectively.
To reinforce what your post points out, the last chapter of his second book, The Audacity of Hope is 28 pages on the subject of the family and, although my copy didn’t come carved in stone, he makes his understanding of all sides of the subject, along with his personal opinions abundantly clear. That he considers more than one solitary facet of any given issue has been a large part of his success, at least from what I’m seeing so far. It’s also been an ability he’s drawn considerable criticism for.
If anyone really cares to see where Obama stands, on pretty much any issue, they may find it helpful to read what he wrote as opposed to relying on neatly parsed sound bites and media inspired distortions.
I WILL NEVER COMPROMISE ON MY COMMITMENT TO EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL LGBT AMERICANS. As your President, I WILL USE THE BULLY PULPIT to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.
I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. Americans are YEARNING FOR LEADERSHIP that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible.
I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, WE NEED LEADERSHIP that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. JOIN WITH ME, AND I WILL PROVIDE THAT LEADERSHIP. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike." -- Barack Obama (February 2008)
Did I miss something here?