Obama Throws a Crumb to the Gay Community
With two prominent gay activists — David Mixner and blogger Andy Towle — bowing out of a Democratic fundraising dinner to be headlined by Vice President Joe Biden later this month, the Obama administration is finally feeling the heat from the president’s failure to follow through on campaign promises he made to the gay community.
Obama has backtracked on his pledge to repeal the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy barring openly gay people from serving in the military. The administration has sidelined legislation to repeal the ban until 2010, with even openly gay Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) concurring with his party’s decision to defer consideration of the issue.
Not only have Democrats deferred on Obama’s campaign promises, but the administration has actively sought to uphold one law, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which candidate Obama pledged to repeal. DOMA, signed by President Clinton in 1996, defines marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Earlier this month, Justice Department lawyers filed a legal brief in a Santa Ana, CA, federal court defending that law.
Mixner and Towle are not alone. Gay activists across the nation have become increasingly frustrated with the administration. Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of New York’s Empire State Pride Agenda, said President Obama’s position on gay marriage “has been causing some problems for those of us working in the states, those who are against it are using him for cover.”
In an apparent effort to mollify those critics, many of whom gave their money and time to his election last fall, Obama signed a presidential memorandum on Wednesday night to extend benefits “to the same-sex partners of federal employees in the civil service and the foreign service within the confines of existing federal laws and statutes.” After conducing internal reviews, Director of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry (who is openly gay) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have determined that the government can administer the following benefits:
For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children. For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations.
However, the plan fails to extend full health care benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers:
Elaine Kaplan, general counsel for the office of personnel management, said federal statutes dictated that many vital health care benefits be conferred only to “spouses” and children of federal employees, effectively making it a benefit of marriage as defined by the marriage act. Ms. Kaplan said the new legislation the president is supporting would remedy that prohibition. In the meantime, she said, his memorandum would cover those benefits that do not fall under the more restrictive statutory language.
While this package does not offer the full range of benefits that some had hoped it would, it is a welcome development and the first significant step toward the federal government recognizing our long-term relationships.
Well, geez, he’s gotta leave himself something do do with his second term. My guess is that after he tackles health care and economic recovery, he’ll devote a considerable portion of his second term to extending equal rights to gays.
Also, good luck getting any positive responses to a pro-gay rights essay on this bigoted cesspool of a site.
I’m guessing most of the comments you’ll get will be various observations on your title’s use the words “Obama”, “bone” and “gay”.
Any goodwill I had left for gay political organizations was pretty much used up during the Miss California affair, and their bigoted targeting of Mormons in the prop 8 debate. I think most Americans feel opposed to granting special extra rights to people based on any particular sexual practice.
Free Hat, the bigots mostly seem to be Democrats. The Dems always gives the gays the shaft after they are in power, yet the liberal gays continue to vote Democratic like an abused person going back to the abuser.
My gay lefty friends are seriously p.o.ed about Obama’s treachery on DADT and DOMA. They are beginning to lose their faith, thankfully, in the One and are starting to look a bit more jadedly towards everything he has said. Schadenfreud!
…Throws a Bone…
The headline writer has a sense of humour.
“Second term.”
You’re too, too funny, asshat. And “economic recovery!” A scream! LOL!
Oh.
You’re serious?
Wow, Ass Hat. We’re extra, extra angry today, aren’t we?
It might have something to do with your late realization of how truly enormous the number of people who Obama is willing to throw under the bus could end up being: I mean look at the other people who were formerly close to the Messiah whose have already become inconvenient: his grandmother, the good Rev. Wright, Wall Street Democrats, anyone who pays taxes, the Iranian people, and now gay people.
And you might just stop and consider that PJM, unlike it’s left-wing counterparts Kos, Huffington and Democratic Underground, et. al, isn’t afflicted with narrow-minded ideological tunnel vision to the point where any competing point of view is put right down the memory hole.
Will somebody please tell me why our Federal Government has any say so in relationships? Is it for tax and insurance purposes?
As a Federal Employee, I sure do wish they’d extend all benefits for everyone. I currently pay the same amount for me and my 2 kids as the guy down the hall with 6 kids and a wife. I’d love to be able to have my coverage extend to my sister and her kids even if we’d have to lie and say we were incestous lesbians!
That’s extinct. He’ll have to settle for the bones.
Bohemond #6,
With a name like “a§§hat”, I would think the level of his “seriousness” has already been determined.
His predictably troll comments at this site seem to be of the Leftist self-loathing type…
…sorta like a masochist who pleads, “oh, you hurt me so…do it again, b!tch!!!”
One can ignore the request, or gladly comply. heh.
The lawyers are the only winners when more people can marry [divorce].
If you only had any idea what the “progressive” feminists have in store:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1408203
They want an entitlement to an orgasm from your partner enshrined into law.
Dan, seriously, have you guys really thought this gay marriage thing through all of the way? Have you considered what obligations may end up coming with that when the postmodern left is done screwing with the law? Marriage, particularly in this day and age, isn’t that great a deal, for either party. It exists for the benefit of the government.
Yet again, I say: Separation of Marriage and State.
well, did they wake up and realize zero is nothing but an empty suit? he does what he wants, his supporters are irrelevant – he’s already gotten the office. Useful idiots all.
Ozzie @2 – don’t be too quick to tar the whole gay community with one brush; many were just as PO’d about the actions by radical gays re. proposition 8 as the conservative community. Gay conservatives – just like female conservatives, or black conservatives – are subjected to far more abuse as “Uncle Toms” than your average conservative, and so their point of view generally gets sidelined by the mainstream press. FWIW, GayPatriot (where this article originated) at http://www.gaypatriot.net , is usually a good read (even if you disagree with some of their points).
Re. the article; I guess the one thing that it points too (aside from the all too common habit of Obama to use the bus in ways it wasn’t intended for ) is that the administration is once again sharpening the divide between everyday Americans, and bureaucratic minions.
I find the whole situations rather strange to watch, from outside the Democratic Party. A pretty good friend of mine, gay and a Democrat, has just recently had himself removed from their mailing list and so forth, after being fobbed off by Party functionaries while trying to complain about the Obama Justice Department’s actions in that case in Orange County, where they filed briefs defending DOMA. He says he won’t give money to the Republicans, but he’s not a Democrat any more either. That doesn’t amount to a full defection, because Nader and his ilk on the left, and Buchanan and his on the right tend to draw off some votes, but never get strong enough to become third parties. It’s a loss for the Dems that doesn’t quite turn into the same gain for the GOP.
The gays are, in this instance, what I call a “captive constituency”. Essentially, they’re not “in play” in terms of national politics. Regardless of what Obama does, he can probably count on a majority of gays voting for him, or at least not voting for the Republicans. Religious conservatives are in the same boat among the rest of the Republican party. Reagan, regardless of what extremists from the left side of the political spectrum say, wasn’t anything like a religious conservative, really, and they weren’t that happy with him. That didn’t mean they’d defect and vote for Carter or Mondale, of course. Bush 43 wasn’t a religious conservative either (shocking to some on the left, I know, but it’s true.) There were even allegations during his presidency that behind closed doors members of his staff made fun of religious conservatives and their goals, while pandering to those same goals in public, in order to garner support and of course money. What are such people going to do, vote for Obama? Some did, of course, but the majority stayed with the party and voted for McCain, even though many were unsure of his positions and the strength of his support for their causes.
Let me make a further prediction, one that will probably be pretty controversial, though I truly think it correct. If the Gay movement ever does get what it wants, vis a vis marriage, service in the military, and so forth, it’ll be from a Republican President. A Democrat will be too eager to protect his right flank to venture out into political no man’s land like that, alienating Hispanics and other interest groups he needs support from. It’s a sort of domestic version of Nixon visiting China, when the Democrats couldn’t.
Sebastian Shaw…Did you really want to say that the Dems give gays the shaft? LOL
But you’re framing it the wrong way, just like everyone did when Obama failed to act on the Somali pirates and the military saved his bacon.
Obama didn’t give them anything. The taxpayers are giving them this coverage.
If I am appointed as a money manager, and to appease the people who placed me I give them money from someone else’s account, do I get credit? Or do I go to jail?
This is the essence of Democrat politics: kickbacks. Take kickbacks and give ‘em out. It’s pathetic because it’s right out in the open, and rather than get upset about it everyone is really just screaming for THEIR kickback.
Free Hat,
Just because someone does not agree with you does not make them a bigot. Perhaps, you are the bigot.
You know, people have always allowed some extrems in the bed room, but they were kept in the bedroom. Why do Americans that are gay feel like they need to share with the rest of the world their personal actions? Should they not be private?
The majority has ruled. Marriage is between a man, and women. We need marriage for many reasons, but we do not need to include Homosexuality as an equal.
I support your right to think as you wish, it just appears Homos do not support the right of others to not agree with them. Strange.
“The benefits package for gay federal employees unveiled yesterday isn’t enough to mollify gay activists.”
Baby steps.
This generation is just barely starting to understand what gays are.
DavidN, I think you’re missing the other reason Teh One doesn’t want to push gay rights – that would undercut his support from – believe it or not – minorities. He sat in Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years, and while you can describe that church as antisemitic, racist, and a whole lot of other adjectives, one other that fits is homophobic. 0bama understands this.
Despite outward appearances, it’s not all ice cream and unicorns in donkeyland.
Uhh…[channeling Mr. Slave] Jesus Christ!
THE DAY AFTER NATIONWIDE GAY MARRIAGE APPROVAL
The parties will be over, the group hugs will have faded with all the other media stunts..gays and lesbians will wake up next to their marriage partners..stare at the wedding rings on their fingers and soon that nagging empty feeling that never really leaves them will descend in force.
The “Gay Community” will give a huge collective shrug and declare…that after all “marriage” wasnt the “real issue”..no not at all. Never was.
Society has to really change…really really change so that Gays can feel, well, uh, happy about themselves. And so the spiral will begin its next downward spin..the next “oppressive” “puritanical” convention will have to be “confronted”…lets see what needs to be done?
Why of course..the age of consent laws..how silly they are, how conventional..they must be demolished..for the sake of “freedom” of course.
Of course.
I hope that at least a few conservatives will recognize federal benefits to gay/lesbian couples as a potential Trojan Horse for litigation challenging DOMA and leading one day to the nationalization of gay marriage.
Self-Hating Boomer:
Nailed it. Obama is not the gay’s friend, whatever they would like to think. They would get better listeners from the other side of the aisle; Cheney certainly seems openminded and engaged about his daughter. Where do you see a dem truly addressing this sort of real-life conflict?
ehunter: Bingo!!
There’s already legislation passed years ago for bringing into law, health care benefits for domestic partners. It has been tabled by Congress for as many years.
Apparently, “domestic partners” is now racist, or something, and our demagogue in chief needs the legislation to have his fingerprints all over it for posterity.
Some crumbs are nourishing; others are Chicago politicians.
censorship sucks
If the dems make good on gay rights the gays will start worrying about high taxes and bad schools and other conservative libertarian notions like actual freedom. In other words, they’ll become republicans.The dems can’t let that happen.
20. Self-hating Boomer:
DavidN, I think you’re missing the other reason Teh One doesn’t want to push gay rights – that would undercut his support from – believe it or not – minorities. He sat in Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years, and while you can describe that church as antisemitic, racist, and a whole lot of other adjectives, one other that fits is homophobic. 0bama understands this.
Actually, I was saying this, from the other side of the equation. The point is that the gay vote isn’t “in play”. Neither is the Black vote, but the Latino one definitely was, and is. A lot of Hispanics wind up owning small businesses, and the minute someone begins exploiting the working poor by being an employer, they’re evil, and pushed towards the Republican Party. Giving the gays what they want on gay marriage and DADT might push some Latinos out of the coalition, and they’re more important (because there are more of them) than the gays are.
Also, there’s a second problem for the gays. Their leadership is terminally stupid when it comes to running publicity campaigns with the rest of the world. During the Prop 8 campaign here they were running commercials comparing themselves to Civil Rights Marchers in the sixties, and now there’s actually been a proposal kicked around for gays to boycott the Black community (Black-owned businesses, etc.) until the Blacks change their mind and vote the right way the next time. Until they understand how to talk to people who don’t agree with them, they’re going to be perpetual losers in the court of public opinion. Of course, when I say this on liberal, or gay sites, I get told my time is past, I’ll be lying to my grandchildren about my position on this issue, etc. No one really listens, because they don’t want to be told the truth.
DavidN just explained why the donx shaft the Jews so freely, also.
eww gay marriage is discusting and i don’t give a damn about what anyone says free speach!!!!!
Reading these posts it strikes me how really successful the gay dominated American Psychological Association has been in brainwashing the American mind. Homosexuality it seems is nothing more than a “choice” a “lifestyle” a
“biological destiny”. No one can ever, ever question that..never. To do so would be “repressive” “fascist” etc. No all we can do is listen to the endless whining and endless insecurities of the Gays and accept that the problem is SOCIETY..and that society must utterly rearrange itself until the bright and wonderful day when homosexuals can really believe the lies they tell about themeselves. In the meantime.. AMERICAN TAXPAYERS.. cough up the dough so that they can feel just like everyone else.
A much bigger gay crumb is in the offing:
All Conservatives Will Be Hate Criminals under H.R.1913.RFS
(Third in a series in recognition of New York City’s “Gay Pride Week”)
I think most of us believe in the axiom of live and let live, in the plaintive cry of Rodney King’s, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
I’m all for that, as long as we’re not expected to gather for a group hug and sing “Kumbayah,” and with another notable exception. When others trample on our rights, on our liberties, on our values, on our free expression of our beliefs then, no, we can’t all just get along until they cease and desist.
The Congress of the United States is in the process of such a trampling, a veritable stomping, by virtue of a new “Hate Crimes Law” which, when passed and signed into the law of the land will become yet another nail in the coffin of America’s freedoms.
Just as most of us want to simply live and let live, most of us decry senseless hatred which is not what this bill is all about. What it’s all about, under the guise of making hatred a thought crime, which is absurd and bad enough, is an effort to control and prosecute free speech, which is unconstitional and also bad enough.
Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, the “2009 Hate Crimes Bill,” HR 1913, takes thought crime and free speech prohibitions to a level inconceivable as little as six months ago.
As one distinguished scholar interprets it, HR 1913 will unprecedentedly establish a preferred category of both victims and law breakers, based on sexual proclivities.
For the most part, homosexuals will be the trod-upon victims, heterosexuals the criminals. However, the good news is that only those heteros who dare to express an opinion, verbally or in writing, such as in this blog, could be prosecuted.
“Liberty University law professor Shawn Akers writes that if H.R. 1913, the federal ‘Hate Crimes’ bill, becomes law, ‘local and state law enforcement would have the incentive of federal funds to prosecute cases involving . . . preferred victims to the exclusion and neglect of less valuable victims.’ Membership in the ‘preferred’ category is ‘based not on immutable characteristics but on the class member’s choice of sexual conduct . . . and subjective gender self-identity:” http://americansfortruth.com/news/analysis-of-2009-hate-crimes-bill-hr-1913.html#more-2733.
See that website for the full text of “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.″
Anyone interested in reading the entire document will be accomplishing much more than our lawmakers do. They are inclined to vote into law bills they don’t bother to read, even multibillion dollar stimulus packages. That law covered a staggering 1588 pages and not a single legislator deigned to read it.
This proposed “hate bill” that will alter our lives, and our Constitution, is a piddling few pages but most of our leaders still won’t read it. It was passed by the House on April 29th and now officially identified as H.R.1913.RFS rests in the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That panel is chaired by Patrick Leahy and includes such Democrat notables as Arlen Specter, Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer. Feel free to guess how they will vote.
(If the website link for the bill’s text is outdated, it can be found here in all its ignominious glory: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D? )c111:9:./temp/~c1118bgECl:: )
Prof. Akers’ extensive analysis of the content and probable impact of the original HR 1913 is a chilling account.. . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)