[H]onestly, the “first gay president” label just doesn’t work, no matter what rhetorical device you employ. And it makes us gays seem silly and starved for validation.
What Straight Allies Need to Understand About Gay Marriage and States’ Rights
But too many people whose marriages are not up for debate have been griping that his announcement was too little, too late. He’s endorsing federalism, argued Adam Serwer in Mother Jones. He’s championing state’s rights, complained left-of-center blogger Digby: “This is the essence of retrograde, reactionary politics and there’s a long history of these ‘sovereign’ states exercising their ‘rights’ to deny minorities their freedom.” Even House Assistant Minority Leader Jim Clyburn was upset with the president’s approach. “I depart from the president on the state-by-state approach. If you consider this to be a civil right, and I do, I don’t think civil rights ought to be left up to a state-by-state approach,” he said Monday.
Such critics of Obama are wrong. They are wrong about what the administration has done and said, wrong on the politics of gay marriage, and — most important — they are wrong on the law.
The campaign for the American presidency is serving to remind us of how much the world has changed in the half-century or so since we entered the 1960’s. An African-American President tells a part of the story of the civil rights struggle that many associate with the 1960’s. Vice President Biden and President Obama’s policy pronouncements on gay marriage last week focus attention on another key struggle for respect and equal rights. The reaction against Mitt Romney’s high school bullying is also part of a story about the changing role of verbal and physical violence and its prevalence in our culture.
The Top 7 Obama Gay Marriage Political Cartoons
(Source: unicornbooty.com)
But for all the polls showing movement toward greater public acceptance of gay marriage, for all the signs of increased tolerance and changing mores, there’s one undeniable fact: A full embrace of gay rights has never been a winner in the political arena
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Fifteen years of ballot measures in more than 30 states from coast-to-coast show an issue that has been rejected nearly every time it’s gone before the voters — often by large margins.
Here are seven states where Obama just bought himself headaches with his historic decision to back gay marriage:
President Obama Endorses Same-Sex Marriage: Video
”This is a major turning point in the history of American civil rights.”- Mayor Bloomberg
BREAKING: Obama: ‘Same-Sex Marriage Should be Legal’
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”
(Source: abcnews.go.com)
