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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Great article, thank you.
Empathy is always the groundwork for this kind of change and this kind of change is SO IMPORTANT.
Unfortunately, I think discrimination can be an almost subconcious thing sometimes and I worry that Obama just doesn't have that empathy. Or maybe it's all political.
Does it matter? If he is empathetic and will not act on it because of politics, that's the same as not being empathetic at all. Except of course he might feel a twinge of guilt.
Beautifully put and spot on.
Principles only mean something when it's INconvenient to stand up for them. I hope the POTUS is listening.
Why not admit that a man is made fora woman, and vice versa?
I was surprised to find out that our brains are arranged to complement one another - in terms of cognition, frontal brain activity, and memory. Isn't that beautiful?
This isn't George Orwell's 1984. We didn't all just pop out of pods with the same brain chemistry as everyone else. We are individuals, and as such, we should respect the individual differences among us. Your brain may be wired man/woman.
You think that abortion is wrong.
I think that sodomy is wrong.
In my worldview, sodomy should be as openly discussed as abortion is.
Pro and con. They are two sides of the same coin. One practice informs the other.
But we are not supposed to notice that . . .
gay is a complement to straight. democrat to republican. protest to oppression. i write left handed but bowl with the right. blah blah blah.
Because in many cases it's NOT set up that way!! Most men are more happy with women, and vice versa, but around ten percent of the population is the opposite, for whatever reason!
Depending on who's statistics? I have stats that say 2 1/2%.
The question then becomes, how can we help the President get in touch with his empathy for gay rights, the way he seems to be able to on other issues?
I have an idea...it'
Maybe, instead of JUST writing the president and Congress and demanding that they overturn these laws and give the LGBT community what we are searching for, maybe we should consider all writing to the president, and our congressmen, and telling them our stories.
Maybe that's the thing. Maybe he just simply doesn't understand, doesn't comprehend the life of LGBTS and our allies
So, folks, maybe we should consider writing people and telling them OUR stories, our struggles, our triumphs and showing the government, and the people that, hey, we are just like everybody else, even if we express ourself differently
That's not even a little bit off the wall.
That is actually a basic rule of marketing (and that's what you're doing essentially). To get a response, you must elicit an emotion. Look at the next ad you watch on TV and see if it tries to elicit an emotion--the professional good ones do. They use the emotions of fear, love, empathy, etc.
Use empathy...
Well let's do it then!
And it is the narratives of our lives that we allow others to make the appropriate comparisons, to say, what was (and is happening) to other groups that were similarily discriminated against. As opposed to makig the comparisons ourselves.
For example, let's take hate crimes. I have been gay bashed 4 times in life. 2 of those gay bashings also involved strong elements of racism.
I am black and I was with a person of another ethnicity. I was called the n-word by a skinhead in a Chicago el-station (this occured almost 20 years ago). On another occasion there were 3 or 4 black guys that may have said ("get the white guy" (for the record, the person that I was with was of Egyptian descent).
In another of those gay bashings, there were actually onlookers as 8-9 young guys bashed me on a football field.
Or to look at it from sort of a literary standpoint, the content of the experience MUST be ours. the form of the narrative is already there.
Right. The stories are written. The question is whose voice is used to tell the stories
and the obvious answer is: EVERYONES
you should be a national leader for your cause. your level head is what is needed to help those of us that want to do the christian thing here. my perception is that among your current leadership. you would not be accepted.
OK. And I'll write to him telling him my stories about gays being race-baiters and Bible bashers and standing buy and letting the Mormon church be vandalized and terrorized because they donated money to a cause they believe in. I'll tell him about how the second Prop 8 passed, they scapegoated the black community and are now hinging their political ambitions on low minority turn-out. I'll tell him about how they're afraid to go to black communities and say or do anything, and how they support racist entertainment like Shirley Q. Liquor and, up until July, they were largely in the tank for Hillary, and they only voted for him out of partisanship and party unity.
So yes, let's start writing and telling him our stories.
Gays are not race-baiting. They are correctly equating a current civil rights movement with a prior civil rights movement. Gays are not bible-bashing, they are simply correctly pointing out that YOUR bible has NOTHING to do with the Constitution.
Who vandalized the Mormon church??? I heard that there had been ONE incident, but that the evidence pointed more towards the Mormon church themselves trying to get sympathy.
The gays did not scapegoat anyone, they simply pointed out (again) how THEIR struggle for civil rights is the modern equivalent of the blacks civil rights struggle!
As for the gays been for Hillary and not Obama.....
Beautifully said. Lack of empathy is one of the most serious problems we face today. It is the reason for bullying so severe in our public schools that some victims take their own lives. It is why many are content to deprive others of basic rights that they, themselves, hold to be sacred. It is the basis for all bigotry, supporting the desperate need to create a class lower on the food chain than they perceive themselves to be. Surely our president understands that, but the time has come for him to find ways to model empathy for the LGBT community. To be true to his word and be the "fierce advocate" he claimed to be.
What a wonderful article. I totally agree and so a few days ago to my facebook friends.
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