September 2, 2008

Don’t Blink, Or You’ll Miss Barack Obama Validating Same-Sex Marriage

Frankly, we’re stunned, in a good way, that the guy who refuses to acknowledge the validity of all marriages, actually used the word “spouse”. Here’s the micro-mini press release issued today by former Jerry Nadler staffer-turned Obama campaigner Shin Inouye:

Sen. Obama’s Statement on Passing of Del Martin

09/02/2008 (10:49 AM)

Today, Senator Barack Obama made the following statement on the passing of civil rights activist Del Martin:

“Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear that Del Martin had passed. Del committed her life to fighting discrimination and promoting equality. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her spouse Phyllis Lyon, and all those who were touched by her life.”

That’s not about to turn me into an Obama fan — Barry’s got way too much anti-gay baggage to dump, and to make up for, for me to even begin to trust him — but it’s something. What kind of “something” is open to debate; my guess is that somebody told him that ignoring the death of Del Martin would be like ignoring the death of Cesar Chavez.

I haven’t written anything in a while about Obama and Teh Gays, because there hasn’t been a lot happening — save for another fawning “some of Obama’s best friends are gay!” piece in The Advocate, “Should You Believe in Obama?,” that’s been online for the past week or more. I haven’t blogged it until now because there just isn’t that much in it to make me do more than shrug and go “Meh!”

Well, that’s not entirely true.

The article begins with former Obama aide Kevin Thompson talking about about his long friendship with the Obamas, and how cool they were with him coming out. All well and good, until:

And after Obama marched in a Chicago pride parade for the first time, Thompson says, questions again poured forth: “He wanted to know the history of Pride — how is it that every city has one, what was the origin of it, what was the whole story about Stonewall.”

Waitasec. If memory serves, the first time Obama marched in a pride parade was in 2004. Only four years ago (and at age 43), Obama was asking his gay friend about “the history of Pride — how is it that every city has one, what was the origin of it, what was the whole story about Stonewall”?

Shouldn’t Obama have known this stuff already?

Let’s turn this around: Let’s say you’ve got a white candidate who claims to be a major ally of the African-American community, whose black friends say that he’s worked tirelessly on their behalf… What would you say about such a candidate if you found out that, just four years ago and in middle age, this guy had to ask a black friend about the history of slavery, civil rights, and the Montgomery bus boycott?

It seems I knew more about the African-American struggle for civil rights by the time I was five than Barack Obama knew about the battle for gay equality when he was 43.

That bothers me, a lot. But it doesn’t surprise me. Which is probably why the thing in this article that bugs me the most doesn’t have so much to do with Obama himself (I already know what his liabilities are), but with a certain anonymous quote.

In the piece, (Bill) Clinton campaigner David Mixner says that “Some people don’t know what to make of [Obama] because he hasn’t known the leading gay activists or even his own advisers on gay issues for very long.” Nothing wrong there; what irritates the hell out of me is the follow-up remark writer Michael Joseph Gross opted to include, from “another” unnamed “national gay political leader”:

“The mafia doesn’t know him. David Geffen, James Hormel, David Bohnett — they’re not his friends. His real gay friends are regular people in Chicago.”

“The mafia”?! Thanks for propagating that little right-wing myth from the bitter lips of Michael Ovitz, Mr. Gross.

Think about it: In an article mentioning the Dreamworks head honchos, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen — super-rich Hollywood power wielders all — would you allow an anonymous comment referring to them as “the Jewish mafia”? Sheesh.

What else bugs me:

Jim Madigan, an attorney who was a student in professor Obama’s constitutional law class at the University of Chicago in the late 1990s, says Obama taught the course from a distinct perspective. Every civil rights case study, from Dred Scott v. Sandford to Bowers v. Hardwick, was made “from the perspective of the individual plaintiff,” Madigan says. Moreover, Obama approached race and sexual orientation with an even hand: “The approach was always, ‘Look at how the government is treating the individual,’?” Madigan recalls. “What was personal for him and what was personal for me — we treated them in the same way.”

Well, Mr. Madigan, that’s easy to do in a classroom, where every issue is dealt with in theoretical terms — and where learning from history is the safest sort of 20/20 hindsight. Outside the classroom, Obama has not yet “approached race and sexual orientation with an even hand.” He admits that the marriage of his own parents wasn’t legally recognized throughout the U.S., but can’t bring himself to make the connection between Jim Crow laws and anti-gay laws. Worst of all, in a lame attempt to justify his thoroughly unjustifiable opposition to same-sex marriage, he uses the same arguments (”tradition,” “religious beliefs,” and “states’ rights” among them) used to justify opposition to interracial marriage.

Fail.

To Gross’s credit, there is, at least, mention of some of the anti-gay company Obama keeps…

When it was reported that Obama described [James Meeks, who is also pastor of Chicago’s Salem Baptist Church and who last year was named by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the “10 leading black religious voices in the antigay movement”] as one of his spiritual counselors — and when the candidate was endorsed by other African-American leaders who have been outspokenly homophobic, including gospel singer Donnie McClurkin — some gay leaders condemned the U.S. senator, claiming that if he truly were our ally, he could not also be their friend.

Yeah, well, I still feel that way, even if Obama renounces all ties with his anti-gay buddies the way he did with Jeremiah Wright — because that decision was borne clearly out of political expediency, not a genuine epiphany.

I’ll also give Gross credit for ending the article with a caveat none of us can afford to forget:

Marriage marks the limit of Obama’s courage. He supports civil unions, believes marriage rights are best granted by the states, and asserts that he believes “marriage is between a man and a woman” — the phrase that’s been honed by conservative opponents of marriage equality.

His stance on marriage is the one crashingly false note in his message to gay voters. It is difficult to understand his position as anything but calculated dissembling. Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois says, “I wish he was being brave and bold and doing the right thing, but it’s his campaign’s and his determination that it would not be helpful or beneficial when running for president of the United States at this particular time. I don’t think he can risk any position other than the one he’s taken.”

Probably without realizing it, Garcia expresses the one thing that annoys me the most about Barack Obama: He’s not “brave and bold” enough to stand up for what’s right — and his anti-equality position is rooted in pure politics. If Obama is so pro-gay, and so honest and open and genuine, then he would come out in favor of marriage equality, damn the naysayers.

Finally, as long as I’m on the subject of Obama and Teh Gays, here’s something else that’s been bothering me for a while: Remember that LGBT conference call the Obama campaign (not Obama himself — he wasn’t on the call) had with a bunch of high-profile gay leaders trying to convince 1,200 listeners (including me) to go to work for Obama? The call began with Steve Hildebrand, deputy campaign manager of Obama for America, telling us that there would be another LGBT conference call “within the next two weeks, which Obama himself will join.”

That call took place June 6th. Today is September 2nd — and the Obama campaign has never followed up on its promise of a second call.

Believe me, if they had, I’d know about it — I’m on the mailing list, which bombards me with constant pleas for donations, but is conspicuously silent otherwise.

I guess I’m never going to get my questions answered.

But, you know what? All of this amounts to a whole lotta nothin’. Obama’s the nominee, and, thanks to McCain’s pick of the worst vice presidential candidate in the history of the United States, I think Obama will win. There’s not much point in my complaining about Obama anymore, as not a thing I could say or do will turn back the clock and get a real Democrat into the White House.

Oh, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop complaining about Obama — and if the guy does become the next POTUS, I’ll probably be ten times as brutal on him as I’ve ever been.

It just doesn’t matter if I criticize him or not. In case you hadn’t noticed, this politics thing is completely out of the hands of We the People, and it doesn’t matter much what we say. Our “candidates” are always chosen for us, and if we don’t vote the way TPTB want us to, there’s always election-rigging.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

Permalink | |