Ezra Klein may well sigh: “Obama’s real pitch to the gay community: He’s not Mitt Romney.”
But, given how little power the president has on marriage, that’s enough for me. Romney is virulently anti-gay, and could not stand up to even the most rancid of homophobes in Bryan Fischer. His church, moreover, is brutal in its hostility. I have some personal experience of this. I dated an ex-Mormon several years ago. He went to BYU and as he ventured out to gay bars, the university sent out spies to track his movements. They intimidated and bullied him. When he tested positive for HIV, they disowned him. I went to his funeral. Even his family wouldn’t show up. There are many Mormons fighting this, and I’ve been honored to speak with and to them over the years. But they are fighting against an institution which enshrines eternal male-female marriage in ways other faiths don’t.
I’m disappointed in Obama, but his leading from behind is not exactly a surprise at this point. And after the end of DADT and withdrawing from a legal defense of DOMA, he’s done a huge amount. But the idea that there is some kind of equivalence between his cynical waffling and Romney’s rank hostility to gay people’s equality is preposterous.
In addition to being a nationally syndicated sex advice columnist, the author of several books, and the host of the Savage Lovecast, Savage is “a deviant of the highest order” (Daily Caller).... More by Dan Savage
Yeah, but the fact that he’s merely the lesser evil enables the Obama administration to waffle. That’s bullshit and we shouldn’t stand for it.
Obama is a politician above and beyond anything else. When it comes to the political calculus (during an election year) he simply has nothing to gain from taking a more progressive stance on gay marriage.
That is, simply, as complicated as this is right now.
If you could push a button and turn him into Dan Savage, ideologically, on the gay marriage debate right now, would you do it? Knowing all the millions of people who are nominally behind him and will vote for him this fall, who would run out of his camp with their hair on fire the second he started wholeheartedly supporting it?
Really, think about that question…. and think about what it would be like to have another Republican back in the white house right now, after 8 years of Bush… and while our entire country is on the brink of going back into the abyss.
Why would he show full support for the gay community while trying to be reelected? May as well just jump out of the race. One thing you can say about Obama: he’s not stupid. Probably leading from behind till he gets back in and then embrace the gay community and be more outspoken with it. He can only serve 1 more term. That would be the time to fight for the gay community. Think/hope that’s his plan.
I always thought it was the republicans who were secretly behind all the legalizing of gay marriage just prior to the 2004 elections, leaving just the right amount of time for them to come up with anti-gay marriage ammendments and campaigns that swept the country in their favor.