Last week, pretty much every single blogger on the Internet who focuses on LGBT rights posted a link to a website called Obama's Plan For Gay Rights. When you clicked the link, you saw a parody of the Obama campaign logo that simply said, "There Isn't One." With that, years, or really decades of culminated disappointment by LGBT activists and allies came to a silent, bitter head. The Democrats, the ostensible allies of LGBT tax-paying citizens, have repeatedly chickened out and sold out gay rights whenever flashed an opportunity to pander. And we're sick of it.
It's one thing to see cowardly Democrats take money and support from gay activists and allies while moving like glaciers towards more equality. We don't like it, but we understand whenever a politician has to swear to be for equal rights in one breath and then claim that civil unions are a suitable substitute for equal marriage rights in the next. Equal marriage has a plurality of support in this country, but it's not quite a majority yet, and politicians, being the slimy crowd-pleasing cowards that they are, can't be expected not to weasel and hedge around the issue. As long as liberal Democrats kept sending signals that they'd support gay rights once wins were secured by activists, we supporters of gay rights kept writing checks and figuring that's the way the game is played.
Turns out that there's a big gap, however, between passive cowardly Democrats who don't fight for or against gay rights and Democrats who take cowardice to a whole new level. The Obama plan was to lay low and hope the gay rights issue goes away, or that's what it was until last week, when the Obama-led Department of Justice filed a brief defending the despicable Defense of Marriage Act in vile, homophobic language, invoking unscientific arguments comparing homosexuality to child abuse and incest. This, despite the fact that Obama has repeatedly stated that he disagrees with DOMA. The administration's excuse is that they have to support the laws as written, even if they disagree with them, a claim that's being publicly disputed. But even if the Obama administration absolutely must defend the laws as written, it's unlikely that they need to resort to underhanded tactics based on right wing lies. There is absolutely no excuse for that kind of dishonesty.
The outcry from gay rights groups has been loud and dramatic. The DNC has a fundraiser hitting up LGBT groups planned for June 25th, and a number of big donors to the DNC are pulling out in protest. This includes Marty Rouse, the Human Rights Campaign's National Field Director, despite the HRC's reputation of clinging to moderation even in the face of some pretty grave insults to the dignity of LGBT people.
People were already beginning to doubt the Obama administration's commitment to gay rights. Obama promised before and after the election that his administration would repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, a non-compromise offered by the Clinton administration that supposedly allows gays to serve in the military if they don't come out and don't get found out, which is to say it changed nothing at all about the ban on gays in the military. But even though allowing gays in the military could be dealt with by an executive order, just as desegregation was handled by Harry Truman in 1948, Obama has decided to punt the issue to Congress, asking them to handle it with a bill. In turn, Congress punted it back to the President, when Harry Reid asked Obama to handle it "administratively". It seems that Democrats who want LGBT money still seem to think that touching gay rights will give them cooties.
The heavy pressure on Obama seemed to work late last week, though, when the President signed a memo asking for same-sex benefits for federal employees. At first, it felt like a victory, but intrepid bloggers dug around and have concluded that this gesture is basically an empty one. So what gives? What could Obama and other supposedly pro-equality Democrats be thinking?
Looking to Obama's strategy on the other toxic culture war topic--reproductive rights--gives us something of a clue. It's clear now that the administration's investment in "common ground" is an attempt to defuse the issue by pretending that the mushy middle that wants to have sex but judge others for it has the moral high ground. So we give the middle what they want, which is basically a right to have birth control and abortion for themselves but a lot of public hand-wringing over how someone else is a bad girl for having an abortion. The common ground strategy has proven to be the sort of thing politicians dream about, where they can have their cake and eat it too, and so of course the administration is going to flail around trying to find a similar magic bullet to defuse the gay rights issue. But instead of actually coming up with such a magic bullet, they're flailing around, punting the issue and hoping no one notices. Or worse, pandering to the right and hoping no one notices.
I suspect strongly that the results of the Prop 8 vote in California loom larger than they should in the administration's decision-making. Since California voted for Obama but against gay rights, the long-held Democratic hope/belief that there's a huge population of social conservatives that just need a little push to be Democrats has gotten a huge boost. Visions of a permanent Democratic majority must dance in their head as they sleep at night. All these swing voters need are a little gay-bashing and slut-shaming and they'll be loyal to the Democrats in flush economic times and recessions, right? And let's face it, feminists and gay rights activists aren't going to vote for Republicans any time soon, so they don't have any leverage to use against the Democrats, do they?
If I were the Obama adminstration, though, I wouldn't be so sure. It's not just that a lot of big money people might decide that their gay dollars would be better spent elsewhere. In some places, it may even be their votes. Republicans might be all gods, guns, and gays in the South and parts of the Midwest, but in places like California, they're discovering that a little social liberalism might pull some of those gay dollars and votes their way. Why else would Meghan McCain, daughter of the last Republican nominee for President, be posing for ads supporting gay rights, while holding out an elephant? Democratic dominance in states like California isn't a given, and if the Republicans can argue that they're just as pro-gay in some states as the Democrats, they're going to start seeing gay rights money and votes moving their way.
