The White House released a statement about R-71 in Washington and Question 1 in Maine (FYI, they had to be nudged by the Advocate to do this. Yay for the new management over there, and yay for Kerry Eleveld):
"The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples, and as he said at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, he believes 'strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away.' Also at the dinner, he said he supports, 'ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.'"
Say what you want, that Obama hasn't helped out, that he hasn't donated money to these campaigns, that his "God is in the mix" statements haven't helped, that California's Yes Campaign used his statements better than the No Campaign. This statement can be used for our benefit, and, after the Prop 8 fight in California, we should have already known exactly how much this guy was going to do to help.
It's ironic, though, that the statement doesn't specifically mention R-71. While Obama's said that he's against same-sex marriage before, he's said over and over that he's in favor of civil unions that are everything but the name when it comes to couplehood recognition. In other words, Washington's recent DP law, that gives all the rights of marriage to domestic partners, is the exact enactment of his campaign. Maine's marriage law, which just allowed same-sex couples to marry, give all the rights but also gives the name.
It's almost like his inherently self-contradictory position (rights of marriage but not the name so we can pretend like it's completely different) was just something for a political campaign. Go figure, but, then again, we already knew that this sort of thing wasn't his bag.
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"This (sigh dejectedly) we won't get much more" approach just won't cut it. It's not a solution, just an admission that campaining for him was a gross error. Beyond that I’m not so sure it’d be a good idea to use Obama’s statements.
After all he badly tainted. He’s damaged goods. In the minds of working people he’s Mr. Afghanistan, just like Nixon was Mr. Cambodia. Obama and Bush, Pelosi, Reid are indelibly blemished by their wholehearted support for TARP, aka, welfare for the very, very rich. Obama is tainted as a jackass union buster. He forced GM and Chrysler workers to accept huge cuts in pay, benefits and job security. And even if LGBT Dems deny that he’s a bigot “gawd’s in the mix” proves it beyond the shred of a doubt.
Those who deny that he’s an open, declared bigot are, well, in denial. We’d want to think long and hard before using the endorsement of someone with his sorry record on the war, the economy, civil liberties and GLBT equality.
And if we did we’d have to couple it with a demand that he call a special session of Congress to repeal Bill Clinton's DADT and DOMA, uphold the 14th amendment and other constitutional provisions and pass laws to insure 50 state equality on the job, in housing and for same sex partners. But we know with absolutely surety that he'll never do that.
Obama captured a good chunk of the christer bigot vote in the last election thanks to efforts of Howard Dean and Leah Daughtry who used contributed DNC funds to promote anti-GLBT, creationist and anti-choice activities.
According to the LA Times Daughtry “keeps an altar at home and devotes a predawn hour a day to prayer and Bible study, is on a mission to narrow the "God gap" between Democrats and Republicans by winning over religious voters who have flocked to the GOP over the last 20 years.” The New York Times adds: “She sparked this crusade, both to transfigure the party’s image as predominantly secular and to take enough votes from the Republicans to win this year’s presidential election...”
Dean was replaced by Kaine, another anti-SSM bigot, as titular head of the DNC. But the real power in the DNC, Daughtry, an ordained pentecostal bigot, is still on the job. She was joined during the campaign by Josh Dubois, another ordained pentecostal bigot, who went from making sick bigoted deals with McClurkin and Warren to snatch the bigots from the Republicans to running the White House Office for “Faith-Based” and Neighborhood Partnerships, where he plays the same role Karl Rove did for the previous bigoted occupant of the White House.
Having captured the bigot vote, Obama isn’t about to do anything that might alienate them. That’s why he’s a bigot. To paraphrase Forrest Gump’s Mama, “Bigot is as bigot does”.
Democratic (sic) politicians are Republicans in drag.
Bill Perdue | October 20, 2009 12:04 AM
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