Leaders lead. Wimps wimp around avoiding having to take a stand.
President Obama only "came out" in support of same sex marriage in a feeble attempt to keep up with vice president Joe.
But the real unforgivable part of it all was his refusal to say, "and the buck stops here". No, he allowed as how it's such a delicate matter that it must be left up to each state to determine.
Hey! Mister President! Isn't this, The United States of America?
Didn't we have some sort of fracas back in 1861-65 on this very issue?
Maybe we could have avoided the Civil war if Abe :Lincoln had stepped back, just as you did, and said, "Well, we'll leave this slavery issue up to each state to decide".
Well, shame on you Mister Obama...Mister President.
You want my vote? Get back to me when you decide to lead.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----From: Miriam VieniSent: Sunday, May 13, 2012 6:22 PMSubject: Glenn Greenwald: Why It's Epically Important That Obama Endorsed Gay Marriage
Glenn Greenwald: Why It's Epically Important That Obama Endorsed Gay
Marriage
By Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian
Posted on May 11, 2012, Printed on May 13, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/155391/glenn_greenwald%3A_why_it%27s_epically_
important_that_obama_endorsed_gay_marriage
In an interview on ABC News Wednesday, President Obama, after several years
of expressing opposition to same-sex marriage and then coyly describing his
position as "evolving", expressed his support for it. In a one-on-one
interview, he told Robin Roberts:
"It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples
should be able to get married."
To understand the significance of Obama's action, a bit of historical
context is required. In 1996, the British writer Andrew Sullivan published a
book, Virtually Normal, which advocated legal recognition of the marriages
of same-sex couples. So radical was that idea back then - a mere 16 years
ago - that very few gay citizens, and almost no gay groups, endorsed it.
Instead, Sullivan told me, "I was actually picketed at book stores" by one
gay group, which "had placards with my face on them and cross-hairs placed
in between my eyes." And, he recalled, the Human Rights Campaign Fund (the
nation's largest LGBT advocacy group) "refused to use the word marriage
until the new millennium."
Indeed, Sullivan's book was published the same year that an overwhelming,
bipartisan majority of the US Senate enacted, and President Bill Clinton
signed into law, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), which barred
the granting of any federal spousal benefits (immigration, tax, estate, and
hundreds of others) to same-sex couples. Two years earlier, another large
bipartisan majority of Congress, along with President Clinton, banned openly
gay citizens from serving in the US military.
In the mid 1980s, the US supreme court upheld the constitutionality of state
laws criminalizing same-sex relations, with the court's chief justice,
Warren Berger, approvingly quoting Blackstone's condemnation of gay sex as
an "infamous crime against nature". As the Aids epidemic exploded, President
Ronald Reagan, for years, refused even to speak of it because it was mostly
gay victims who were dying. The writer Edmund White yesterday recalled:
"As a man in his 70s, I grew up in an era when homosexuality was still an
offense in some states punishable by death."
In sum, as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, the country was headed in the
direction of aggressively denying the most basic rights to gay citizens.
Marriage equality, a definitively fringe position, was on virtually nobody's
radar.
Pervasive anti-gay discrimination in the US endures to this day. Doma is
still valid law, denying same-sex couples every federal spousal right to
which opposite-sex couples are entitled (as a result, there are thousands of
gay Americans unable to live in their own country with their foreign
national spouse). Same-sex marriage is recognized in only seven of the 50
states. On Tuesday, the day before Obama expressed his support for marriage
equality, the state of North Carolina - which Obama won in 2008 - approved a
ballot measure to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions by a landslide
majority.
This is why it is genuinely historic that Obama, in the midst of a difficult
re-election campaign, chose to become the first US president ever to support
same-sex marriage (former Vice-President Dick Cheney, citing his lesbian
daughter, did so when running for re-election in 2004). One can question
Obama's sincerity; some believe his reliance on gay donors and need for
greater enthusiasm among his core voters was his motive. One can quibble
with his rationale; some have criticized him for suggesting that states have
the right to ban same-sex marriage if they wish. But one cannot reasonably
question the importance of his act.
Obama's public defense immediately enshrines same-sex marriage as
theofficial orthodoxy of the Democratic party. It is inconceivable that
marriage equality will ever again retreat to the fringe. His willingness to
embrace it in the midst of an election year signals a belief that the
American public is ready to accept this position as perfectly mainstream,
even if they disagree with it. It will undoubtedly enable - or pressure -
other world leaders to support the same view.
Perhaps the least quantifiable impact of Obama's statement is the most
important one: it is a powerful message to gay youth that their sexual
orientation is neither a flaw nor an abnormality. As White wrote yesterday:
"The stigma of being gay drove my age-mates and me toward drink, suicide and
years on the psychoanalytic couch in an effort to go straight. We were
wracked with self-hatred, which blighted so many lives of our friends."
This stigma, devastating in so many ways, is surely lessened when the
nation's highest elected official advocates for full legality for same-sex
couples.
This week, gay Americans and their allies predictably, and understandably,
expressed their glee, along with a not insubstantial amount of shock, at
seeing their full legal equality publicly embraced by an American president.
But the reaction of the right wing is more telling. Obama's GOP opponent,
Mitt Romney, re-affirmed his opposition to both same-sex marriage and civil
unions, but did so with reserved rhetoric and a very tepid tone, betraying a
belief that same-sex marriage - once an electoral gold mine for his party -
is unlikely to hurt Obama's electoral chances.
US media coverage Thursday has been fixated on the micro aspects of Obama's
announcement: his motives, how it will affect the election, the role that
internal administrative divisions played in his decision. But 20 years from
now, none of that will matter. The historic event is that same-sex marriage,
for the first time, now has a supporter in the Oval Office.
There are many disappointments and truly bad acts for which President Obama
is responsible, but for one day at least, on this single issue, he
demonstrated authentic and important leadership on a civil rights issue that
affects millions.
Glenn Greenwald is a Constitutional law attorney and chief blogger at
Unclaimed Territory. His forthcoming book, How Would a Patriot Act:
Defending American Values from a President Run Amok will be released by
Working Assets Publishing next month.
C 2012 The Guardian All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/155391/ Glenn
Greenwald: Why It's Epically Important That Obama Endorsed Gay Marriage
By Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian
Posted on May 11, 2012, Printed on May 13, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/155391/glenn_greenwald%3A_why_it%27s_epically_
important_that_obama_endorsed_gay_marriage
In an interview on ABC News Wednesday, President Obama, after several years
of expressing opposition to same-sex marriage and then coyly describing his
position as "evolving", expressed his support for it. In a one-on-one
interview, he told Robin Roberts:
"It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples
should be able to get married."
To understand the significance of Obama's action, a bit of historical
context is required. In 1996, the British writer Andrew Sullivan published a
book, Virtually Normal, which advocated legal recognition of the marriages
of same-sex couples. So radical was that idea back then - a mere 16 years
ago - that very few gay citizens, and almost no gay groups, endorsed it.
Instead, Sullivan told me, "I was actually picketed at book stores" by one
gay group, which "had placards with my face on them and cross-hairs placed
in between my eyes." And, he recalled, the Human Rights Campaign Fund (the
nation's largest LGBT advocacy group) "refused to use the word marriage
until the new millennium."
Indeed, Sullivan's book was published the same year that an overwhelming,
bipartisan majority of the US Senate enacted, and President Bill Clinton
signed into law, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), which barred
the granting of any federal spousal benefits (immigration, tax, estate, and
hundreds of others) to same-sex couples. Two years earlier, another large
bipartisan majority of Congress, along with President Clinton, banned openly
gay citizens from serving in the US military.
In the mid 1980s, the US supreme court upheld the constitutionality of state
laws criminalizing same-sex relations, with the court's chief justice,
Warren Berger, approvingly quoting Blackstone's condemnation of gay sex as
an "infamous crime against nature". As the Aids epidemic exploded, President
Ronald Reagan, for years, refused even to speak of it because it was mostly
gay victims who were dying. The writer Edmund White yesterday recalled:
"As a man in his 70s, I grew up in an era when homosexuality was still an
offense in some states punishable by death."
In sum, as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, the country was headed in the
direction of aggressively denying the most basic rights to gay citizens.
Marriage equality, a definitively fringe position, was on virtually nobody's
radar.
Pervasive anti-gay discrimination in the US endures to this day. Doma is
still valid law, denying same-sex couples every federal spousal right to
which opposite-sex couples are entitled (as a result, there are thousands of
gay Americans unable to live in their own country with their foreign
national spouse). Same-sex marriage is recognized in only seven of the 50
states. On Tuesday, the day before Obama expressed his support for marriage
equality, the state of North Carolina - which Obama won in 2008 - approved a
ballot measure to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions by a landslide
majority.
This is why it is genuinely historic that Obama, in the midst of a difficult
re-election campaign, chose to become the first US president ever to support
same-sex marriage (former Vice-President Dick Cheney, citing his lesbian
daughter, did so when running for re-election in 2004). One can question
Obama's sincerity; some believe his reliance on gay donors and need for
greater enthusiasm among his core voters was his motive. One can quibble
with his rationale; some have criticized him for suggesting that states have
the right to ban same-sex marriage if they wish. But one cannot reasonably
question the importance of his act.
Obama's public defense immediately enshrines same-sex marriage as
theofficial orthodoxy of the Democratic party. It is inconceivable that
marriage equality will ever again retreat to the fringe. His willingness to
embrace it in the midst of an election year signals a belief that the
American public is ready to accept this position as perfectly mainstream,
even if they disagree with it. It will undoubtedly enable - or pressure -
other world leaders to support the same view.
Perhaps the least quantifiable impact of Obama's statement is the most
important one: it is a powerful message to gay youth that their sexual
orientation is neither a flaw nor an abnormality. As White wrote yesterday:
"The stigma of being gay drove my age-mates and me toward drink, suicide and
years on the psychoanalytic couch in an effort to go straight. We were
wracked with self-hatred, which blighted so many lives of our friends."
This stigma, devastating in so many ways, is surely lessened when the
nation's highest elected official advocates for full legality for same-sex
couples.
This week, gay Americans and their allies predictably, and understandably,
expressed their glee, along with a not insubstantial amount of shock, at
seeing their full legal equality publicly embraced by an American president.
But the reaction of the right wing is more telling. Obama's GOP opponent,
Mitt Romney, re-affirmed his opposition to both same-sex marriage and civil
unions, but did so with reserved rhetoric and a very tepid tone, betraying a
belief that same-sex marriage - once an electoral gold mine for his party -
is unlikely to hurt Obama's electoral chances.
US media coverage Thursday has been fixated on the micro aspects of Obama's
announcement: his motives, how it will affect the election, the role that
internal administrative divisions played in his decision. But 20 years from
now, none of that will matter. The historic event is that same-sex marriage,
for the first time, now has a supporter in the Oval Office.
There are many disappointments and truly bad acts for which President Obama
is responsible, but for one day at least, on this single issue, he
demonstrated authentic and important leadership on a civil rights issue that
affects millions.
Glenn Greenwald is a Constitutional law attorney and chief blogger at
Unclaimed Territory. His forthcoming book, How Would a Patriot Act:
Defending American Values from a President Run Amok will be released by
Working Assets Publishing next month.
C 2012 The Guardian All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/155391/
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