Saturday, June 13, 2009

Obama's Gratuitous Insult To Gay Couples

Due to a social engagement down the street I did not post last night, but that's not to say that I - like many other LGBT Americans - wasn't seething at the nastiness of the Obama Justice Department's brief in support of DOMA. For a nation where allegedly there is a separation of church and state to see what in the final analysis is discrimination based solely on religious belief is disgusting and demonstrates that the USA's self-proclaimed religious freedoms are a false facade. Because LGBT Americans do not live in straight relationships dictated by the Christianist version of the Bible, we are condemned to less than equality. That a [half] black president who ought to understand bigotry and discrimination based on unchosen characteristics allows this to continue makes me sick. John Aravosis at America Blog was among the first to reveal just how badly the Obama Justice Department has betrayed LGBT Americans - we were not only thrown under the bus, but they backed up over us numerous times as well - and even equated gay marriage with incest. One would have thought Peter LaBarbera or Robert Knight had written the brief. Here's some of John's analysis:
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It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).
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He actually argued that the courts shouldn't consider Loving v. Virginia, the miscegenation case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages, when looking at gay civil rights cases. He told the court, in essence, that blacks deserve more civil rights than gays, that our civil rights are not on the same level.
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And before Obama claims he didn't have a choice, he had a choice. Bush, Reagan and Clinton all filed briefs in court opposing current federal law as being unconstitutional (we'll be posting more about that later). Obama could have done the same. But instead he chose to defend DOMA, denigrate our civil rights, go back on his promises, and contradict his own statements that DOMA was "abhorrent." Folks, Obama's lawyers are even trying to diminish the impact of Roemer and Lawrence, our only two big Supreme Court victories. Obama is quite literally destroying our civil rights gains with this brief. He's taking us down for his own benefit
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Here in Virginia we are looking a potentially close election in the contest between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds where the LGBT vote literally could have the potential of deciding the election. And the Obama Justice Department just told us all to go f*ck ourselves. McDonnell as governor would not be a positive but now that Obama has taken a position akin to McDonnell's view of gays, maybe staying home on election day would make no difference.

1 comment:

Christopher Flournoy said...

Okay Michael, you know that I think we need to give the President time to address our issues... the brief probably 'was' written by a GWB appointee. With all the President has to deal with, I very much doubt that he had any prior knowledge of what exactly the DOJ was going to say to the court. At best, I can imagine that some very loose guidence may have trickled down to DOJ to say, "try to maintain things as they are until the time to act is right." Believe me, I hope I'm right about this (I kept all my Obama souvenirs :-)

As far as the notion that "we" (GLBT people and our advocacy groups) are going to jump ship and leave "our friend" in a lurch... that's just crazy talk. Where are we going...? To Rush Limbaugh or even Michael Steele, I think not. Yes, it's certainly appropriate to express our discontent with the President's timetable (or lack of a public one), but let's not forget what it was like to have a "real enemy" in the White House.

I still have faith in Barack Obama to keep his promises to us. Even if there are perhaps 30 million of us, he's got to govern with the best interest of all 300 million of us in mind. As sad as I am to acknowledge this, and as painful as our grievences are to bear, at this time in the country's history, the President has huge and almost unimaginable challenges to deal with, not the least of which is freedom and equality for GLBT people.

I say, let's engage our "friend" and help him to realize that indeed the time is now... But let's not make threats that may only serve to upset our "friend" and further delay the day when he can say, "promises made, promises kept."