The President and Gay Marriage

After hearing the president's announcement of his personal support of  same-sex marriage, I just wanted to enjoy the president's positive statement. I figured that there would be affirmation and support for the president among progressives. Was I wrong!

PZ Myers post over at Pharyngula is an accurate reflection of the critiscism that the president is reaping from some progressives and some members of the LGBT community who feel that the president's statement was weak and insignificant. Myers writes:

That’s the best we’ve got from Obama? Seriously? It’s taken him this long to “evolve” to the point where he can take a personal (not even a political) stand on civil rights? 

What do people expect from this president? He has gone further than any president has before. What is there to be skeptical about? This was not a clever campaign move designed to garner votes. In taking this position he stands to lose some Black and Latino votes, two groups with numbers significant enough to make a difference in November. What he may gain from the LGBT vote will not be nearly enough in numbers to compensate for the votes that he stands to lose. I think that he did the right thing because it was the right thing to do.

But I am flabbergasted at some of the responses from his critics who identify with the progressive movement. Everything does not happen at once. During his administration, DADT has been repealed and cannot rear its ugly head again unless Congress passes another discriminatory law. Unlike what could have happened if he had merely ended DADT with an Executive Order that would have had limited authority for enforcement and that could have been easily rescinded by the next president without congressional approval.

Now he has taken a very public position on an issue that no president before him has ever addressed. What's the alternative position? Would you prefer that he have continued to say nothing? Exactly what nefarious reason could he have for making this declaration in favor of equality?

And the notion that his speaking out two or three years ago would have made any difference in North Carolina's recent vote to amend the state constitution to declare that marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic union recognized in the state is ludicrous. This particular legislation has been proposed every legislative session for at least the last five years. NC joins 30 other states that have already passed similar constitutional amendments. The majority of voters still don't believe in same-sex marriage as evidenced by the 31 states where citizens came down firmly against safe-sex marriage by referendum. No other president has said a word about gay marriage and now this man finally speaks up and the whine is, it's not enough? Obama made history today.

Obama has been in office less than four years and in those four years it seems that people expected him to undo the biases and prejudices that have been firmly entrenched in this culture for centuries. Myers and his allegedly progressive cohorts sound like petulant children and don't offer any constructive criticism, only complaints that Obama hasn't done enough. For the 100th time, presidents don't propose nor write legislation and an Executive Order is not a magic wand. Most of what the public believes can be done with an EO is based on a total misunderstanding of the scope of the president's power.

All of you who feel betrayed by President Obama, would you feel better if he hadn't addressed the issue at all? What's your plan for November? Quite a few critics of the president's statement in support of same-sex marriages also declared their intent not to give their vote to Obama in November. I can only assume that they somehow believe that helping Romney win the presidency will teach Obama and the Democrats a lesson. I think that this is what it means to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Think this is far fetched? Perhaps you missed the story from West Virginia about Tuesday's primary. Keith Judd, currently incarcerated in Texas, managed to get himself on the ballot for West Virginia's Democratic primary. Judd got 40% of the Democratic vote. It seems that 40% of Democrats cast their vote for Judd in order to to vote against President Obama. You can't make this stuff up. If we end up with a President Romney, there are a whole lot of people who are going o have some explaining to do.

The River of Change is Wide and Deep

I read a post over at Marc's place, Le Trash Whisperer, about multiple topics but the one that particularly grabbed my thoughts had to do with the passage of the discrimination law, Prop 8, a California state initiative on the 2008 ballot. In case you have been shipwrecked in the south seas since November 4, Prop 8 legalized discrimination by revoking the right of gay couples to marry in California.

Marc has published several thoughtful pieces about the significance of the passage of Prop 8. I am awed by his ability to be far more reasonable and rational about this topic than I am.

I am unforgiving and judgemental. I find the denial of the right to enter into marriage based on the sexual orientation of the two people who wish to marry to be an unconscionable act of discrimination and those that support this discrimination to be bigots. I don't believe that declaring oneself not to be a bigot means anything; in this matter, actions and beliefs shout bigotry louder than any words of denial.

Marc suggests that there is a middle ground or compromise position that would allow for civil unions between any adults who choose that route, including gay couples, but that would reserve the term "marriage" for straight couples. I think that I understand his logic--so many who are against gay marriage insist that they object to what they perceive as the expansion of marriage to include same-sex partners and want it declared that marriage is only for male/female unions. Marc's solution would eliminate the entire debate as to how allowing two same-sex adults to marry would somehow undermine the institution of marriage.

While I respect Marc's proposal, I don't think that it would work. I think that the so-called "defense of marriage" forces would simply find other reasons to object to same sex unions, regardless of what they are called. I find it curious that the defenders of marriage only find the institution to be threatened by allowing two same-sex adults who wish to publicly profess their love for one another and their commitment to that love to marry. I figure that if marriage can survive infidelity, divorce, and indifference by one or more partners, it ought to be able to survive a few more people willing to give a lifetime commitment a try. It's not as if heterosexuals have made a huge success of lasting marriages; I really don't see how gay couples could do any worse.

A lot of people, including me, have made parallels between the racial civil rights movement and the gay civil rights movement. After giving it some additional thought, I actually think that it may have been simpler for black people to achieve legal equality coupled with forward movement in social equality than it is going to be for gay people. Religion ultimately worked in favor of black people. Even in the heyday of slavery, the impetus of the abolitionist movement was born out of some Christian churches taking an inventory and recognizing that slavery and Christianity mixed about as well as oil and water. Certainly there were those who looked to the Bible to justify slavery, particularly among southern denominations. (Genesis 9:25-27 re: the children of Ham was often cited.) However, the abolitionist movement that blossomed in America grew out of an anti-slavery evangelicalism that had its roots in movements in England and in America that began to question human bondage as being consistent with a belief in a loving God and an obligation to love one's neighbor.

The intertwining of the civil rights movement and religion continued into the 20th century. The heart of the racial civil rights movement was grounded in a moral concept of the worth of all humans, regardless of skin color. After all, the largest symbol of the movement was a minister who appealed to basic principles of Christianity in promoting the message of equality. It was difficult for all but the most hardened, sheet wearing, cross-burning bigots to argue that the Christian God condoned keeping a people in bondage or subjected to second class citizenship because of the color of their skin.

Disturbingly, there is a refusal by a significant segment of organized religion to recognize anti-gay rights sentiment as being in the least bit immoral. To the contrary, they are certain that morality is on their side. They don't view the issue as denying rights to a group of people based on sexual orientation but rather as refusing to recognize what they view as unnatural, an aberration in the sight of man and God.

The phrase that I've heard for years is, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." I find this sentiment hypocritical and nonsensical, but those that espouse it are rock solid in their self-righteousness. I don't know that they would be moved if their son or daughter, or grandchild declared, "I'm gay." I've seen far too many families close the door on all interactions with a family member who comes out of the closet. They pray for the "sinner" to see the error of his or her ways. On family holidays, a few daring souls speak about the absent family member in occasional hushed whispers, certain in their moral righteousness that they have followed God's law.

I don't have an answer. I believe that communication and education is essential, and we must continue to speak truth in a loud and clear voice and refuse to validate bigotry regardless of the basis for that bigotry.

However, I am disturbed at where my thoughts have taken me. I don't feel optimistic about social change taking place regarding gay civil rights to the same extent as black civil rights in the near future. I am also even more convinced of the absolute necessity of pushing forward with legal protections of those rights with "all deliberate speed."