"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Switch Makes "Gay" the New Civil Rights Issue

All that greenhouse gas carbon dioxide everyone exhaled during the presidential campaign in the big debate on race may have been unnecessary air pollution.

It turns out that Barack Obama's civil rights issue is now coming clearly into focus, and it's not about race. It's about gays.

And why not? Racial divides aren't gone. But look at it from Mr. Obama's perspective when it comes to prioritizing which minority group should get his attention: He's black. Starting Tuesday, he's president. Case closed. Or he could put it this way: I am, therefore it is. Let's move on (.org)

A few days ago, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs posted a video on the new Administration's web site, change.gov, answering a constituent's question about the military's "don't ask, don't tell," probably one of the most nonsensical, silly and politically contorted policies ever to come out of the Clinton White House. More pretzel-like even than what the definition of "is" is. "Don't decide, don't please anyone" was more like it.

There'd been some concern that Mr. Obama seemed to be waffling on his earlier statements that he was going to dump "don't ask." Was he going to end the policy or not? "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much," Mr. Gibbs answered in more than one word. "But it's 'Yes.'"

That's a change the gay community and supporters have been seeking since the policy went into effect in 1993. As Chronicle reporter Matt Stannard notes today, Mr. Obama is firmly in line behind people like Colin Powell and Sam Nunn, both of whom first supported "Don't ask.." and later came to oppose it. Also it's a safer bet when three-quarters of Americans polled now believe gays and lesbians should serve openly in the military, compared with less than half in '93.

But the President-elect also picked gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson to offer an inaugural prayer at the Lincoln Memorial next week. That'll be some mash-up with anti-gay marriage Pastor Rick Warren, who's also in the religious prayer line-up Tuesday. Mr. Warren said, adding fuel to the post Prop 8 fire, that opposing gay marriage was "not even just a Christian issue. It's a humanitarian and human issue."

Bishop Robinson, meantime, said Mr. Obama was showing he indeed wanted "everyone at the table." Like a big, dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving.

I can just imagine Barack Obama wrapping his arms around both Messrs. Warren and Robinson in a Clintonian Mideast summit-style hug, the two men of God vibrating like magnets when you tried to push the wrong ends together as a kid.

Familiarity, the President-elect seems to have decided, will breed tolerance.

Even Oprah, Mr. Obama's most famous and publicly enthusiastic fan is dealing with the gay issue, whether her audience likes it or not.

On a recent show, a minister told her that "Being gay is a gift from God." And another guest added that people were "gay by divine right." Even for the all-embracing Oprah, this was a little bit of a jolt. Check out her expression. She was still reeling a few minutes later as she went to commercial break. "We're still dealing with 'being gay is a gift from God,'" she said.

Commenters on Gawker couldn't resist a little satire: "the problem with gifting gays," wrote Monsignor Xtravagante, "is that far too many of them end up taken to the pound or let loose after the holidays because children just don't realize how much work it is to take care of them. People: if you're going to gift gays, please make sure the recipient is ready and willing to take care of a gay, otherwise they may end up unwanted, released into the wild and could then turn feral - and no one wants feral gays rampaging thru their neighborhood, eating the native wildlife and/or knocking over trash cans in the middle of the night. Thank you." You're welcome.

"I got a gay for Hannukah," wrote Fishnets and Cigarettes. "Best gift ever. To whom do I address my thank you note."

An easy snark mark. But there it was, right on middle-America-loving (and loved) Oprah.

There's even been a kind of Mormon-gay bible group discussion. Dominic Holden, on the blog thestranger.com, tells the tale of wanting some Prop 8 revenge so he ordered a copy of the Church's Book of Mormon, just to make them spend the money sending him one. What he got, he said, were two missionary elders at his front door. Elder Guthrie and Elder Leatham. There was not agreement in the end, but there was hand-shaking.

So the ground is plowed, so to speak, for an Obama initiative about gay rights, and he seems like he wants to plant some seeds there.

Comments

[kenny453]

Just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean it's true. If we follow the Bible, we can own slaves, have many wives, beat our children, and commit genocide against our enemies on God's behalf.
We should be put to death for disrespecting our parents, eating shellfish, or failing to rotate crops.
I believe there is a creative, intelligent power in the universe greater than I am, but the Bible is a book of mythology, oral history, hagiography, and fever dreams. If you choose to believe it is the holy word of your God, rather than the collected works of mortal men, which were selected or rejected by a powerful council of men with a predetermined criteria, translated many times over, copied by hand thousands upon thousands of times from manuscripts absent of punctuation or even spaces between words, why then, knock yourself out. But it can not be the yardstick we use to decide which groups of people deserve to enjoy their "God given" rights and which groups do not.

[david43a]

I know it may surprise y'all, but gay folks have been, will be and are now in the service...
I was, in the times of reagan and I knew several others....we had a commander who was interested in
keeping his planes flying, and only keeping his planes flying...straight or gay, if you kept one on the ground you were in for it!....
unusual in those days...less so today...lesser still tomorrow...
I have been asked why I would join.....the only answer I can come up with is
that this country is worth it.

[MuchMadness]

For Christians, St. Paul's words in the first chapter of his epistle to the church at Rome carry more weight and authority than the opinions of any modern bishop or any columnists, television hosts, or politicians.

[itmaybetoolate]

Are those the words that encourage people to marry only if they can't suppress their lust?

[MuchMadness]

Nope, that epistle went to the church at Corinth.

[bliss0027]

okay and thats fine, believe that and don't be Gay, okay? But don't try to limit other peoples lives because of what YOU believe in. It is your Christian duty to love all of god's children and to let god be the judge of men.....If I can live with people like you all around me and still have a normal life, then I'm sure you can learn to live your life in a world that has gay people

[StillIRise]

I'm glad you brought up St. Paul. As someone raised Christian and has been Christian all of my life, I finally realized that much of Christian theology does not honor the words of Jesus ... it honors the words of St. Paul, and then puts his words into Jesus' mouth and ultimately, it becomes the word of God. However, what's left out of that theology is that Saul of Taurus was human, just like you and I, and though he was "a man of God," he also had his own issues, his own personal prejudices and his own agenda. Building a religious foundation, and therein the beliefs that emerge from this foundation, on the words of one good but fallible human being is in itself questionable, to say the least.

It could very well be that St. Paul himself was homophobic or a closeted gay.

[ConstanceReader]

You said it yourself -- those were the words of Paul of Tarsus, NOT of God. And he was preaching not to the world but the city of Corinth, the Las Vegas of its time. There is an ancient saying about it: Not every man can go to Corinth.

[max08]

Leave gays alone.

[itmaybetoolate]

Is it just me or has the MSM media ignored the recent terrorist threat against gay bars in Seattle?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008597989_ricinthreat07m.html

Suppose letters of this sort had been sent threatening shopping malls? Wouldn't we all be howling about the terrorist threat? Wouldn't there be an elevation in the threat level?

Has obama said a word about this?

Someone explain it to me.

[M1]

I can't.

[Darthwave]

President Obama didn't mentioned anything about the recent police shooting in Oakland either. Does that mean he is doesn't care? What nonsense.

[itmaybetoolate]

Except that the recent shooting wouldn't be defined as a terrorist threat. The use of ricin would be defined as a terrorist threat. What nonsense indeed! And, I notice you didn't address my primary question - why was this ignored?

[caterpol]

"Like a big, dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving".

Now there's an apt summation. We can whine all we want about a red America and a blue America, but we're stuck with each other none the less.

As to familiarity, it'll either breed more contempt, or have the more desirable effect. Let's hope Obama is right and it turns out to be the latter.

[Isabelle17]

Well, there is always emigration...

[Davwbaird]

Sitting down and discussing and experiencing does produce change.

[JinChicago]

good info, but that last comment....

So the ground is plowed, so to speak, for an Obama initiative about gay rights, and he seems like he wants to plant some seeds there.

puns intended? :p