What the President is Missing on Gay Rights
I know it seems odd. Ironic even. I was listening to the president's speech to the veterans on Omaha Beach, commemorating the anniversary of D-Day and it hit me. Funny I know. I was listening to him address military veterans and I realized what is missing in the president's approach to gay civil rights.
On Sunday June 6, he spelled out, as only he and Jon Favreau can, the significance of the day not as some pedantic history lesson but as a narrative. The tale of ordinary men who found themselves in the most extraordinary of circumstances. And sure, every president throws in an anecdote about someone in the audience but for Obama, it is more than that.
My kids have had a gifted middle school history teacher. No textbooks for Judy Berecski. She brings the lessons of history to life through the personal narrative, giving our kids the opportunity to walk in the shoes of slaves, of soldiers, of those expanding America to the west, to immigrants arriving to find a home in the United States. Why? Because she believes that without empathy as a lens, history is meaningless. What choices did those men and women have? What could they have done differently? What would you have done in that situation? It is through questions and discussions that our kids realized that history is simply the reading and telling of the most remarkable story.
When first asked about the criteria for selection of a Supreme Court Justice, the president caused a stir by using the word empathy. He wants justices who understand the impact of the law on real peoples' lives. Empathy is about personal connection, about caring. Not something you learn in a textbook. It is the most important ingredient in the human experience. Caring about your fellow man.
Whether it is an address in Cairo or at Buchenwald or in Philadelphia on the campaign trail, the president speaks so eloquently, so empathetically about the real impact of the fear of difference in our society.
This is exactly what has been missing from the president on gay rights. Empathy.
I believe with all my heart that the president is in the right place on all our issues and that we will see more progress in an Obama administration than we could hope for. The impressive record of the first 100 days (and the work since) tells me that.
But I haven't heard evidence of empathy. Yet. And its absence has begun to create an air of suspicion -- a growing sense among bloggers and activists -- that we once again were courted for our votes and our dollars and then promptly left on the back burner. Or maybe not on the stove at all.
We have a right to be impatient. Let's remember. It was not very long ago that the former POTUS stood before the American people and announced that he was pushing for an amendment to the Constitution banning marriage equality. It was not so long ago that we could be charged as criminals in many states for who we love. We may be on TV and even hosting the Tonys but let's be clear. We are second class citizens. We have every right to make noise and to push.
But what we need most of all is a president who illustrates that he cares about us. A president who honors our struggle, honors our plight, honors those among us who have been fighting the good fight. We need a president who can weave a heartfelt narrative that reminds the American people that equality for gay Americans is not simply an issue of law, of right and wrong. But that as members of a global community, we have personal connections and obligations to the people with whom we share this world.
The message must come, not from his head, from his vast understanding of Constitutional law, but from his heart. Why? First, without the inclusion of empathy in the narrative of history, we learn nothing. No one changes. And secondly, the gay community knows full well. We are controversial; Going to bat for gay and lesbian equality requires more than simply having logic and intellect on your side. We've learned. The hard way.
Leaders who have been successful in moving gay rights forward are right. Of course they are. But equally as important, they care. And they communicate that commitment by helping others to walk in our shoes.
Empathy. The president took heat when talking about this as a criterion for a Supreme Court Justice. But not from me. I thought it was absolutely spot on.
Now I'd like some empathy from the president. It would make the waiting easier. I could be more patient. And if he can weave empathy into a strategy of diplomacy I believe we will have elected a president who can lead us in tackling the most important civil rights issue of our time.
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With every controversial issue Obama takes on the opposition’s base will grow larger. Already, with cap & trade, the bickering Republican Party has transformed into an full blown opposition force. With the healthcare debate bound to fire up the blue-collar republicans, taking on gay-civil-rights could prove too much for the docket to handle right now.
But with two wars, healthcare, climate change and a volatile Middle East, it seems gay-civil-rights will be a difficult issue for Obama for the remainder of his term. What’s the solution?
Personally, I think the gay community to be less Dr. King & more Malcolm X. The militant black movement did one thing really well, it made it impossible to publicly oppose black rights without being labeled a racist. The gay community should get angry & start calling people out on their bigotry. The less credible the opposition the less painful it will be for Obama to take on & easier to get passed through the Senate.
He will: AFTER Healthcare.
Carol
Promise?
Will he conveniently notice other things he has to do first?
He can't chew gum AND walk at the same time?
If you are pissed at Obama, join me and 500,000 of your closest friends at the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. on October 10-11, 2009. This event is just getting up and running and is planned as a direct result of our President's inaction on LGBT issues. While there, phone bank for Maine! Learn better canvassing techniques, network with other LGBT and straight allies from all over the country. Get recharged in the company of your extended "family."
Let's show the world our numbers and demand that his campaign promises be fulfilled. Stick around for the days after to lobby Congress..
Start socking away your pennies. See you at N.E.M. in October.
Empathy doesn't matter when you're planning on re-election.
For now, Obama must conform to the homophobes, bigots and religious maniacs.
Or he thinks he must.
The GLBT Community needs to forget about Obama and the DNC for now. They are not our friends. They are politicians and being ‘empathetic’ is a tool they use to get votes. And they correctly recognize that they can win elections without our votes.
Only after we prove we can carry at the very least a few blue states, will we have any leverage with the national parties or their candidates. We should to stop working for and funding the DNC and candidates like Obama. We need to focus our money, time and talent on winning in state ballot initiatives and candidates who explicitly support full citizenship for all Americans including GLBT Americans.
Pick a blue state any blue state.
In the meantime our efforts for or against the DNC and Obama are wasted. Whether they fake empathy for us or not, these politicians will not move to give us full citizenship until we change the political and electoral framework they operate in.
Can someone name one issue that the gay community cares about other than its own interests? I mean, seriously. There is no such thing as gay rights, since we all get to do the same thing. Sure it would be nice for certain pieces of legislation to pass, but the world isn't going to stop turning if it doesn't.
I don't blame Obama for ignoring you all, to be honest. He has bigger fish to fry, and for the race-baiting and religion bashing so many of you do, it's very funny that you think he owes you something.
Obama's everyone's President, not just liberals. Thirty states have voted and said they don't want gay marriage. Practically and politically speaking, what benefit will Obama have by alienating 2/3 of the country for a small but vocal special interest group?
What issues do gays care about? Healthcare, the economy, war, the supreme court. Oh I'm sorry, liberals do this thing. It's called being concerned with more than one thing at a time. If inter-racial marriage had been put to a vote it would have lost too. It was the courts that made that happen. Gays aren't "you" they are "us". When you get that, that gays are equal human beings, you will be for gay rights too. I think Obama can fix the economy, healthcare and give gays equality all at the same time. And please, please do not try and tell me gay couples are treated like straight couples. Don't insult my intelligence. OK? Nice try with the race baiting - religion bashing line. Typical divide and conquer bull the right uses all the time. It's religion that's bashing gays, not vice versa. And I'm a Christian. Those Christ -free idiots don't speak for Christianity and deserve to be called on their bigotry.
Race baiting? I am gay and black. I guess I'm baiting myself.
And..."the
Religion bashing? Look what they do to my life and try to vote away my marriage.
If someone tried to vote away your marriage, you'd care about "your own interest" too!
"I don't blame Obama for ignoring you all" ? How Christian of you!
As I said earlier...
Gay is not an issue. It's my life. And yeah, I'm focused on my life and my people like any one else.
Yeah, we run around calling people bigots, because...
I am black and when someone is a racist, I call them out on it. Should I just be silent and condone their behavior?
Oh yeah, because I'm gay and black I don't deserve to have an opinion. Sad Homophobe!
how about you "refusing" any and all of the rights that you get as a heterosexual that gays don't have. All of them. It is true, not passing gay rights legislation doesnt affect YOU if you are not gay.
1. Obama's parents were married and their marriage wasn't recognized in most of the USA.
2. Many churches and most synagogues recognize gay marriage, and all of these rights. Does this make you anti-christian or anti-semetic since these religious groups are denied their rights too. Perhaps. What about their rights?
3. Obama is certainly capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Maybe GWB couldn't, but most other Presidents were quite capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
4. Obama may be everyone's President, but he doesn't have to support discrimination against any group.
5. I don't likeself-smug people to repudiate Christ by divorcing or committing adultery. Next weekend, stand up in you church and synagogue and ask the adulterers to leave. If you are a Catholic, ask the divorcees to leave too.
Right on!
Marriage is a civil contract (if anyone studied basic civics in high school).
That is what marriage equality is about. Equality under the law.
God is an option to add on. Buddhists and atheists are allowed to get married in the U.S. God is not required.
Bigots hide behind their "God" because they are frightened. They feel "smug" to help calm themselves from their fear.
I hearby refuse all rights that gays don't have. There, I just refused exactly zero rights that I already had that gays don't have.
Yeah, can't be talking about my gay and black self.
An agenda and a backbone?
I support Obama and hope he'll actually live up to his whole"change you can believe in" ideal. God knows healthcare and our economy in the toilet are more important to me than gay marriage or gays in the military (sorry). But I assumed when I voted for Obama he could do more than one thing at a time. After all, he isn't a Republican. If at the end of 4 years he has done nothing to make gay citizens equal under the law in these areas, I will not vote for him in 2008. Nor will I donate to his campaign, nor go out and work for him, which I did this time artound. I don't overestimate my own importance and think that will make that big a difference, but that is what power I have as a citizen, and I will use it. Of course I won't vote for a Republican either. The decision is his. He seems to think conservatives will elect him next time around, he's gotten so buddy buddy with them, he won't need liberals like me. We'll see. 4 years. Plenty of time.
Let's see -- Obama -- empathy for LGBT community -- hmmmm.....
Well, this IS a President who, during the campaign, explained to the HRC that while he would support civil unions, he opposed granting the title of "marriage" because that term had a "spiritual" aspect. In other words, Obama basically agrees with the homophobic assumption that same-sex relationships are about nothing but sex and for-the-moment companionship.
I seem to recall this being totally blown off by most of Obama's gay supporters during the election with "oh, that isn't what he meant", although no one ever did explain what he DID mean. There might not have been much of an option by November but the deafening silence in response to these red flags last year has given him a clear message: he can be as un-empathetic to gay citizens as much as he likes and no one will complain.
Obama certainly has a lot on his plate, but he needs to get a lot more citizen pressure on this. He (along with a few commenters here) seems to have forgotten that gay men and lesbians aren't resident aliens from the planet Jupiter; they're citizens of this country and as much a part of the American scene as any of the religious groups he's been trying to court.
2 THINGS ABOUT COMPARING BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS TO GAY CIVIL RIGHTS
1) It's a COMPLIMENT to the black civil rights movement that gays point to blacks as an example. Why are people so offended by that other than homophobia? The Gay Rights movement is holding the black civil rights movement in high esteem!!
2) People forget that lots and lots and lots of gays and lesbians are people of color. I keep reading comments that characterize gays as "whites" and "white males" which makes those comments suspect.
1) Because gays don't simply reference the civil rights movement, they try to co-opt the empathy blacks built up for their human rights to ratchet up their policy agenda (gay marriage, DADT, ENDA, DOMA, etc). Blacks know this isn't to show reverence or respect. It's to employ homily to make their arguments sound better. Instead of risking someone taking the comparisons out of context, they just need to find a better reference point. It's not bigotry because they're resistant to the gay community trying to shoehorn in their ideas on the nuts-and-bolts work of the civil rights movement
2) And most of them don't make the wholesale comparisons to racial discrimination and the civil rights movement that white gays make. They, coincidentally, have some sort of perspective on the issue. They understand how it is the same, and how it's different. The people who don't are the ones who have never had to worry about racial discrimination in the first place.
You sure are scared of gay and lesbian Americans. I'm not even sure your first point makes sense.
Why allowing Gay men and women to have equality is so threatening to you says more about you as a person than any of your arguments.
So what you're saying is that if we give gays the right to marry and serve in the military that the blacks will lose all the rights that they've gained so far??? Cause that's sure what that first point looks like you're saying!
Every civil rights movement overlaps and builds onto the next.
Legal precedents are created, and those carry through history and serve to prop up the legal arguments of the next civil rights struggle.
It's all very logical to me.
You aren't just denying "white gays" rights. Kinda racist of you to even say that.
I love the position that gays and lesbians should not "push" anyone or demand anything from anyone. The position that we should be happy for civil unions and understand that we are wrong to criticize religion because it does not include us as full human beings in its dogma.
In the South, during Reconstruction, the same attitude toward the newly freed Negroes (as they were called) was rampant. The blacks could be free as long as they "knew their place" didn't get "uppity" and were content to continue being subservient to the white landowners and white society.
Of course, blacks did not stand for that. And gays won't either. I am one of the 18,000 legally wed gay couples remaining in Calif. Federally, I can't be given my husband's social security payments when he dies. We can't file federal joint taxes. There are some 700 additional federal marriage rights we are not allowed because we must "know our place."
Would blacks or hispanics or any minority put up with that and "just take it."
NO.
It seems to me that gay men and women should not expect much leadership from President Obama. The Obama vision for the Democratic party is to encompass the less looney split-offs from the Republican party, the more moderate military brass, independents and the DLC Democrats. Lefties are assumed to stay because they have no place to go. God, guns and gays have been nettlesome to the Democratic party, and the new and improved Democratic party, under Mr. Obama, will jettison these pesky issues/people. The god issue is being dealt with by preacher-like addresses and frequent references to Jesus, religion and faith-based pro-choice; guns are now good, even to being able to carry them in national parks; and gays--well maybe when center-right independents and Republicans are on-board and clamoring for change, Obama will show some gumption. Get used to it, he is empathetic enough.
"Good enough" is the enemy of good.
I'm sure Obama will express empathy with gays. If someday he actually feels it.
As I've said before and it needs repeating. We have to give Obama and Congress a reason to care. We need to put names and faces behind real stories, real experiences. Not let people continue to hold their beliefs on limited experiences that lead them to build largely incorrect stereotypes
There have been names and faces. For crying out loud you can't get a more horrific story than Matthew Shepard, and look what's happened to the hate crimes bill that bears his name!
The thing is even when a straight person knows a gay person, they're still ambivilent about gay issues. Troll's excluded, the "liberals" here are allegedly gay friendly and yet keep telling us to wait till next year and then the year after that so another less than par health care fix it bill can be worked on and then killed.
The reason Obama and congress should care is gays are human beings. No more needs to be said. If that isn't enough, then I feel sorry for Obama and congress. Begging hat in hand? Please sir, treat me as a human being? Puhhleez.
Actions speak louder than words...
Want empathy then show that you have empathy for others.
Funny but I don't see that at all.
"Do unto others right?
If you want understanding, understand. If you want empathy show it for others.
Stand in my shoes first before your own.
But I guess maybe that's just too hard?
Look for trouble..l
Look through your own colored glasses and you won't see reality.
Call it a "Civil Union" leaving the world "Marriage" out of it and trust me, you will find more acceptance than what you are getting.
Someday, maybe some of you will turn a corner and realize where you are as compared to those who are not gay...and then you will be able to put yourselves in our shoes and understand for the first time.
Until then, keep bashing Christians and Catholics and you will reap the rewards...
It's the Chrisitans and the Catholics that have been bashing us for at least 1700 years.
As a Christian, I resent your attitude that it is "THE" Christian viewpoint that ignores Christ and condemns gays. Get over yourself. Treat gays like everyone else would like to be treated. Try it.
"Do unto others"
Fair enough, if God is sending us to hell then he's sending you to hell. If God wants me to go without medical treatment for a life long critical disability, as some of you Christians believe, fine then you can go without medical attention yourself if you're hit by a car and end up being paralyzed and fighting for your life.
Do unto others?
Sure. Fine. I will. All marriages in America should be banned and channged to civil unions.
That'll work.
Your argument for separate, but unequal, treatment of one class of people, under the law, is dishonest and sorta violates the principles of the 14th Amendment.
PS: If I wnated to bash Catholics (being a former Catholic myself) I'd call you a pedophile. Please be honest. We're not bashing Catholics and Christians. We're using Christ's words to claim what is Constitutionally ours in the first place.
So you're telling the gays to stand in the shoes of the straights before they can complain about anything..
I guess that means that you support gay marriage and legal gay military service then, so that they can stand in your shoes to understand what hardships you're going through being married and having served your country!
The madness of this blog and the LGBT community in their reaction to Obama is just flabbergasting. You want Obama to come out and say, I feel for you. Who else will he have to come out and say he feels for? Blacks, we need love to. Hispanics, they gave him a huge electoral advantage and they need love to. Women demanded after Hilary that he do everything in his power to advance his agenda, and the gave him the election. You are asking for a standard of care that surpass what is practical, logical or do able. The LGBT community needs to chill. Take what happened in NY and expand that to the US senate. What happens if by pushing your agenda, a good agenda I will agree, we lose seats in the senate so that we no longer have a majority. What happens if all the push back on health care becomes exacerbated by the LGBT agenda that you demand he push. You want to know what is in Obama's heart, then look at who he places in key positions. Obama has done everything he can without a public promise and a timetable. You won't get it, demanding it won't get it. You have to wear a political hat. If you don't examine these problems through a political lens you don't understand what is happening.
J
I hear you but here's the thing:
1) History. To be more specific, the Clinton era.
2) Obama alternated been half-hearted support and out and out gay baiting during the campaign.
3) Everyone of those groups, while they still suffer from severe discrimination, also have certain federal legal protections on the federal books. Gay people don't. And even now the Democrats in Congress want to backtrack because many of their voters are also homophobic. So the Dems say, wait, wait, wait, we have to get elected, wait, wait, oops it's election time again.
Based on what precedent should we trust Obama and the Democratic Party?
no
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