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Gays are making no sense--they blame Obama for loss in Maine
Maine voters rejected gay marriage yesterday. Obama has said that his position consists in letting each invidivual state decide in regard to this issue. And he did exactly that. He let Maine voters decide. But AP reports that national gay activists are blaming Obama and TV ads.
That makes no sense to me. They should go read the campaign promise list.I say keep fighting, but don't distort reality.
That makes no sense to me. They should go read the campaign promise list.I say keep fighting, but don't distort reality.
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This is generational. Today, many voters are willing to accept civil unions, but only a minority will accept gay marriage. Among the younger generation, however, gay marriage probably enjoys majority support. In my view, the best recourse for the gay community is the press its case in a strong but civil manner, but with the patience to recognize that success may require some of the older opponents to die off.
November 4, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The elastic in my underwear wore out. It's Obama's fault.
November 5, 2009 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. Criticism is fine, but after a while the message being transmitted is that Obama is inept, corrupt or uncaring. The same message is delivered about Pelosi and Reid. If Democratic leadership is that bad, why should the Democratic base be energized to do anything.
It took tv cameras showing children being sprayed with water hoses and attacked by German Shepherds for a mindset change to really begin in the US.
The older voting public does not get the pain that Gays feel about not being able to marry a loved one. That is not Obama's fault.
November 5, 2009 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The older voting public does not understand that the 14th Amendment is not just about Roe v. Wade: it is about extending due process of the laws to everyone.
Obama the "constitutional scholar" should explain that Government is there to protect the civil rights of everyone, not just those the majority (narrow though it may be) deems worthy of equal access to the laws.
In this respect, Obama's stance, in holding states have the right to deny rights to certain of their citizens, mirrors that of Stephen Douglas, who similarly held that states had the right to decide whether slavery was legal or not.
The irony of this should not be forgotten.
November 5, 2009 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're going to have to disagree that slavery or Jim Crow are equal to the Gay marriage/Civil union argument. African-Americans had to face enslavement, escaped slave hunting posses, Jim Crow enforced by police and fire department, and then Loving vs. Virginia.
I don't think that Blacks who were enslaved would place the marriage issue on the same level as slavery. Gays should have the right to marry but they are not facing the type of tyranny that Stephen Douglas was condoning.
I would note that in the California vote on Gay marriage, there was not a great deal of outreach to older African-American in churches. While Blacks did not cause the anti-Gay marriage measure to pass, they did not come out in force to suppress the measure.
GW Bush was aware enough to use outreach to churches to get 20% of African-Americans in Ohio to vote for him as a surrogate against Gay marriage. Note that 80% of a mostly religious voting group did not vote for Bush as a means of delaying Gay marriage. If 80% of whites had voted like 80% of Blacks did, GW would have been sent packing.
The bottom line is that Gays have to do a better job of outreach in the African-American community.
But please don't equate the Gay marriage issue to slavery or Jim Crow.
November 5, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The issue is not the same at all in scale, I agree. And the only "equating" that can be done is with respect to the Constitutional issue raised by the 14th Amendment (which, I know, did not exist at the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates).
But one gets on slippery slopes when one condones violations of such core principles as are involved here, besides the intrinsic unfairness and illogic of denying gays the right to marry. Not good, from a Constitutional or a human standpoint.
November 5, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the issue goes to the Supreme Court regarding the cases where a public vote overturned the rights of individuals (Legislature passed Gay marriage bill, Gay marriage reversed by vote) it will be interesting to see how the Court interprets the Constitution.
The Supreme Court ushered in Jim Crow (government segregation was illegal, private segregation OK) and ruled that the Japanese interment camps were legal.
What's Constitutional depends upon who is on the bench.
November 5, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, what's Constitutional depends on who is on the bench.
Consider this piece of 'originalist' jurisprudence:
"It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted. This makes it proper to inquire whether suffrage was coextensive with the citizenship of the States at the time of its adoption. If it was, then it may with force be argued that suffrage was one of the rights which belonged to citizenship, and in the enjoyment of which every citizen must be protected. But if it was not, the contrary may with propriety be assumed."
Of course suffrage was not coextensive with citizenship in 1866 or 1789. But it is clear that the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment is not being adhered to here. Here is the opening of the unanimious SC decision to deny women the vote:
"The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in its first section, thus ordains;
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws."
And the constitution of the State of Missouri thus ordains:
"Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote.""
Maybe it's just me- There is a prima facie contradiction there, which does not resolve itself by recourse to historicist arguments, apparently as common among jurists in 1874 as it is now.
The issue was finally resolved half a century later- the 19th Amendment was ratified by Congress, not by popular vote- which is fitting, for obvious reasons.
I'll agree that what's Constitutional depends on who is sitting on the bench, because it is a fact that SC justices are no better than anyone else at interpreting the Constitution than anyone else, and very often worse.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/minorvhapp.html
November 5, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put. I believe Obama's near silence on these issues and his failure to move on don't ask, don't tell, DO contribute to the current "oh they should be happy with THIS" climate.
Separate but equal? We can do way better. Obama claims to be a "fierce advocate" for gay rights, but besides signing the hate crimes bill he hasn't done much.
On more thing: AP reports on what people are saying, it isn't affirming the truth of it. The most cursory reading would show it's a matter of opinion.
... waiting for the dinosaurs to die...
November 5, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama could try to be a leader on the issue. I think the Supreme Court is supposed to be the conservative branch, waiting for public consensus to change before stamping and signaling it. Normally Presidents are the ones who push the change. And hope.
November 5, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
When this issue was voted on in Calafornia I recall hearing that some voters were confused and thought voting yes was a vote in favor of gay marriage. Of course the reverse could be true as well. But it does seem these referendums are always brought by the opponents of civil rights. Is it possible proponents could find advanage by drafting their own wording? Have gay rights activists brought their own initiatives anywhere?
November 5, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Part of how the Civil Rights Movement won was by making it clear that racial bigotry was socially unacceptable.
Obama has done the reverse with homophobia -- by honoring 'Rev.' Warren he showed that he considered homophobia acceptable. This certainly did not cause voters in Maine to feel that there was anything wrong in denying gays the right to marry those they love.
Jim Crow and separate but equal were not quaint Southern social customs which would die out it due time but moral evils that needed to be dealt with. The same with discrimination against gays.
November 5, 2009 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm disappointed w/ Obama on his campaign pledge to "be a fierce advocate for gay rights" and his lack of any advocacy on DTDA and gay rights. He is playing ploitics with the gays and happens to be on the wrong side!
November 5, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Obama has said that his position consists in letting each individual state decide in regard to this issue. And he did exactly that."
I see.
So Obama should, in the future, refrain from campaigning for ANY Democrat running for state office or speak out on any state issue - since those are, in his own words, 'state issues' requiring no input from him.
What a completely inane 'argument'.
November 5, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Makes his job a lot easier, dontcha think?
November 5, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The title is quite a blanket statement.
November 5, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink