Obama defended DOMA today, said it was constitutional and marriage is not a fundemantal right. And banning same-sex marriage benefits the federal goverment.
No comment.
Oh, I've got a comment for ya.
*ahem*
Obama couldn't give two craps about fighting for gays, fighting for whether or not they have rights, or whether or not they can enjoy the simple right to marry someone they love. Obama cares about winning re-election in 2012, and he wants to do everything he can to again carry Indiana, that CD inside Nebraska, and North Carolina. Reassuring people that gays will never get the right to marry in their states is a damn good way of winning votes there. Maybe he'll pick up Georgia too, wouldn't that be grand! ~~
Obama is, and has been since starting the campaign, using gays as political pawns. It's not just Obama who's guilty of this—half the Democratic party does. I can't count the number of times when I've heard, "oh, we can't do this, it's an election year." There are plenty of good politicians out there who will fight for gay causes; who will vote for gay marriage even when its a lost cause. It just happens that Obama isn't one of them.
Way too many people, gays included, bought his hype. "Change" was just a slogan. There was nothing in his background that hinted that Obama was a different kind of politician or special in any way. Everyone was so eager to get behind him that no one thought to put any kind of checks on him.
And it's sadly frustrating that even after repeated slights to the gay community, people continue to be okay with Obama and are patiently awaiting whatever the hell this "Change" for gay people was supposed to be. Spoiler alert: It ain't coming, kids.
There's never a time when a group of people have won their rights by graciously accepting steps backward as "progress." We didn't fight and win the Revolutionary War through negotiation and compromise. We didn't free the slaves by slowly electing presidents who said, "well, hold on now guys, these southerners have some valid points here—it's too much too soon." We didn't win civil rights for African Americans by having the White House support briefs in favor of Jim Crow laws.
The only way we'll see gay marriage nationwide in our useful lifetimes is through a decision in the Supreme Court. That's it. South Carolina isn't going to slowly warm up to it. Alabama isn't going to slowly warm up to it. Their hands need to be forced. And eventually, after a few years of gays being allowed to marry, they'll grow to accept the idea as inevitable and realize its not so scary after all. That's precisely how civil rights were won in the south—through the courts.
Damnit, rights are only won through fighting for what we believe in, and for way too long, we've simply been allowing ourselves to be used as pawns of the Democratic party and letting them believe that our votes are going to default to them, rather than forcing them to accept that our votes need to be earned. Obama doesn't need to force the Senate to vote on gay marriage tomorrow, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stand by and let him chip away at what we've been trying to build piece by piece for the last couple of decades.
Ever since he took office, Obama has done nothing but allow the football on gay rights to be pushed back further and further for the sole reason of his own political gain.
I call shenanigans on that. Get out your motherin brooms.
