Not for the first time in our nation's factious history of presidential elections, we are debating what it means to be free in The United States of America. Not for the first time, a U.S. President is arguably staking his mandate to lead the country on the body politic interpretation of the freedom of the individual. And, not for the first time, but presumably for the last time, "We the People" are coming to grips with Thomas Jefferson's seemingly unassailable dictum that "all men are created equal."
By becoming the first U.S. President to come out in support of same-sex marriage, President Obama has boldly illuminated bone-deep and often ugly differences of opinion dividing Americans, and exposed them to open civil discussion. Comparisons to Abraham Lincoln and his stand on slavery a century and a half ago are ample and inescapable.
Both presidents, incumbents from Illinois facing difficult reelections, were forced to confront a crisis cleaving the nation along uncomfortably similar political and geographic boundaries: North vs. South, federal vs. state, equal vs. unequal. Harsh, often brutal and vulgar criticism, often having little to do with issues, was heaped upon both heads, with vicious lies and distortions about their private lives and beliefs running rampant.
Both men, from all accounts pensive by nature, apparently agonized over the slow, difficult conclusions they came to -- decisions overdue to many and rash to others, unwelcome to an unyielding third constituency and inconsequential only to a benumbed, indifferent fourth. President Obama described his position as "evolving" toward espousing same-sex marriage, while allowing, "I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally." Lincoln stated his decision was part of a "personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
Publicly lambasted by prominent figures of the day, many of whom were leaders of his own Republican party, Lincoln was derided by the other side, especially abolitionists, for not addressing the issue earlier. Sound familiar?
Even a founder of the president's party, the great Horace Greeley, wrote early in Lincoln's bid for a second term, "He is already beaten.... He cannot be re-elected. And we must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow." Democratic U.S. Senator, Joe Manchin (WV) not only declined to endorse President Obama during his election campaign in 2010, but has also indicated he may break with his party and vote for the president's Republican opponent this November.
Neither a president breaking with his rank-and-file over unpopular policies, nor disillusioned, disgruntled factions threatening to break with one, is new to American politics -- particularly where considerations of who's free and who's equal, rooted throughout our nation's history, are concerned. Andrew Jackson, "The People's President," subscribed to expanding the electorate to include all white male adult citizens rather than landowners exclusively. Jacksonians and Whigs, no less confrontational in 1828 than the parties they would imminently evolve into, Democrats and Republicans respectively, only found accord when it came to confronting the thorny issue of slavery. Avoid it.
The formation of The Confederate States of America and their convention's calls for secession from the Union on the one hand, and on the other, Lincoln's first inaugural address resolutely declaring his intention to preserve the Union and let none destroy it, made heated talk and threatened action over the practice of slavery impossible to avoid or turn back the clock on. To the contrary, the impassioned debate spurred Lincoln's resolve to settle the issue of slavery once and for all, paving the way for the nation's most politically sweeping human rights action since the Declaration of Independence, i.e., the Emancipation Proclamation.
Issued as an executive order during the third year of the Civil War, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." Not stopping there, the Proclamation took another decisive step forward by providing for the acceptance of freed slaves into the United States (Union Army and Navy) military. Freedom in America took on meaning for 200,000 black soldiers who took up arms for it. Three generations would pass before President Harry S. Truman would sign an executive order integrating the U.S. military by mandating equal "treatment and opportunity... without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." Only 16 years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would enact the capstone "Civil Rights Act of 1964."
Every presidential initiative to expand and ensure civil rights has been bold and highly controversial. That didn't stop Woodrow Wilson from signing into law the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote, nor discourage the Clinton Administration from issuing a hard-won compromise policy, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," regarding gays serving in the military, nor hamper presidential candidate Obama from pledging to revoke the ban on gays in the military and President Obama from signing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" into law.
As landmark civil rights proceedings go, the two historic drafted documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation, made the third, unwritten one, President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage, possible. The president has in effect "edited" and enhanced Jefferson's classic dictum to avow, unequivocally, all men and women are created equal. As such, his pronouncement may be the last major civil rights action of our time.
Ray Errol Fox is an Oscar-nominated documentarian and journalist/writer. He regularly posts on his on his wide-ranging blog, SON OF THE CUCUMBER KING. Jacopo della Quercia is a history writer researching the Lincoln and Taft presidencies for an upcoming book.
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Go back and watch the Utube of the President addressing this issue. He says flat out that he believes my gay son should be equal "down in my heart". Obama then goes on to say this will not effect government policy, and will remain under the power of the states. In his usual dog and pony show, Obama took both sides of the issue for his own advancement.
Can you imagine if Lincoln had said of the slavery issue, "well, down in my heart I know it is wrong, but I won't let that effect government policy. I am going to leave slavery a decision of the states"? There would still be slaves in the South right now!
I'm glad the President has feelings down in his heart, but he's no Abraham Lincoln. The comparison is laughable.
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union ...
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."
- Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley, 8/22/1862
I, however, agree that it is laughable to compare this current president to our nation's greatest leader.
their are some who clearly think that all "Men" are created equal, doesn't extend to women; especially in regard to a woman complete and total right to control her body and thereby control her destiny.
there are many who think that these choices should be legislated for us, because they believe that we are incapable of making these choices for ourselves.
until ALL americans are afforded the full right to direct our lives, there we be those stilled denied full human dignity.
Plus, I suspect that most people of color, and other groups, would bristle at the idea that their struggles for equality are over.
I suspect that you cherish the right to privacy, and the rights of liberty, and free speech, and freedom of thought and association, etc. ALL of these concepts are the invention of patriarchal societies, and issue directly from their concept of hierarchy. In a non hierarchical society there are no individual rights. Only consensus and conformity, and "Big Mother" is always watching! Be careful, in your search to dominate others, that you do not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
--sigh--
Should the term "civil rights" only be applied to those who were enslaved and killed because they behaviorally chose to be disobedient to their masters? I hope that the final groups of people who get their full civil rights are not subjected to beatings, rape or murder before being allowed to be considered a full human being in the eyes of their society.
I have a gay son, and two gay nephews in my huge family. I tell you from direct experience, they were different from the other kids from birth. We knew they were gay by four years of age, and it was whispered about among the adults. A full decade before they had sexuality and it's choices.
If your serious you may want to pick up a history book. The LGBT community trivialize slavery for their own benefit. To compare 2 people not marrying to 200 years of rape and torture is like comparing 2 4th graders fighting to WW2.
What rights do I have that they don't?
For myself, I think only God can effectively compare suffering between people. It is pointless to say this group had it better or worse than that group. Suffering is a thing of the human heart. I can tell you with the authority of direct and vast experience that gays are discriminated against with savage violence, and all men and women of good will should stand up to those who do the violence.
Those who look the other way at the affliction of gays in today's world are the same as all those good Southern Baptists in the 60s who were irritated by "all the fuss those black are making with that Martin Luther King fellow".
It's amazing, isn't it, that the road to true equality has been such a long one? considering that it was a founding principle of this nation. And yet we're still so far away from true equality.
There will never be true equality when it comes to income; and despite conservative propaganda to the contrary, liberals understand this and accept it. But the greatest hypocrisy of contemporary American Democracy is Inequality of Representation, which was the evil that this nation was dedicated to overthrow. That too was a founding principle.
The Balance of Power that Monroe worked so hard to achieve, through his crafting of the structure of the United States Constitution, has been thrown out of balance by the influence of money. Everybody knows it. Everybody can see it. Money is power and power is money.
In our current system the people with enough money to unduly influence the government are the modern day equivalent of the British, and the rest of us are the Disenfranchised Colonists. And yet this system is presented to us as if it's patriotic and American.
If the Founding Fathers came back and saw what's been done to the system of government they created, they'd never stop throwing up.
I will still vote a Democratic ticket for Congress, because I fear the religious right element in the Republican party. I want enough Democrats in Congress to block their social agenda. But I won't be voting for either of the parties Presidential candidates. I am going to either leave it blank, or vote Libertarian.
As to the "last great" civil rights action of our time, I must go with First Lady Michelle Obama, who stated the other day that voting rights are the most important civil rights issue of our time.
It's rock scissors paper. Without voting rights, there will be no other civil rights of any sort.
A number of states are passing "anti bully laws". When you look at them the laws specifically say that schools may not stop kids from verbally attacking gays if they do so for their religion. IE, laws protecting the bullies, as long as they attack only gays.
When gays are attacked on the streets it is often dangerous for them to approach the police. I directed a counseling service that had a street outreach, and watched that happen with my own eyes. A gay was mugged, when he approached the police car, bleeding and wounded, he was arrested for disturbing the police. When he was put in the holding cell, still bleeding and wounded, the police shouted "here is a f****t for you boys".
Believe me, when the above is being done to you, it is bondage...
When our system works right, it isn't that we get to vote for the better person so much as for the person who will do what most of us want to be done.
At this point, the President looked out, saw that the majority of Americans now favor marriage equality, and acted on it.
Unfortunately, because of un-democratic institutions like the Electoral College, or rulings like Citizens United, politicians incentives can be distorted, as they see they can win office, power and perks by catering to the special interests of the few.
To me, there is a difference between bending to the will of the electorate and changing positions for narrow political advantage and against the will of the electorate to take advantage of un-democratic imperfections in the system.
1. Why is it that only white gay men see this as the civil rights issue of our time...or a civil rights issue for that matter. Does it cross your mind at all (besides the we know better or its homophobia excuse) that NOT one other group that has had a civil rights movement (not org....group) shares this sentiment?
2. Why is it that you don't see that women still have major rights deficiencies in this country. You think the work is done? Misogynist much?
This is a rights issue, but not civil rights. Obvious to anyone not using hyperbole and racial exploitation to make their point.
Gay couples deserve a recognized, legal union that brings with it all the "benefits" of straight marriage. But a marriage is something fundamentally different from a gay union, and it deserves to be recognized as such, even if such recognition is little more than a formality.
Humans invented marriage, they can change it any time they want. Your logic is all opinion and hyperbole. Also your logic is tortured and pendantic.
Marriage is what ever we want it to be. All that about the gay lifestyle means nothing, and when straights act like that they are protected, their clubs, bars, cruises are just pasttimes, not anything of substance.
The marriages of the past were for convienence, the marriages now are more for love, this will also change over time.
You can't stop change, or argue it away with silly comparrisons.