Well done, Mr. President!

I've been rather critical of what I've seen as President Obama's foot dragging on LGBT rights, so much so that my anger made it into the Kansas City Star. But I have to send serious kudos to Obama for lending the force of the federal government to lesbians and gays whose spouses are ill and in the hospital. This is going to help an amazing number of people.

Here's the memo announcing the new order he just issued.

Today's Must Read: Barack Obama, the man

This reporter recounts accidentally meeting Obama at Arlington Cemetary.

He didn't introduce himself. He didn't have to. President Obama simply stuck out his hand and asked for my name as he stepped toward me amid a bone-chilling drizzle in the Gardens of Stone.

Jon Stewart takes on The Birthers & wins

Thank you, Jon.

Political IQ: Close your wallet & open your mouth

My new Political IQ column tackles the topic of when it's appropriate for LGBT people to close their wallets and talk about their lives.

What we have here is a teachable moment. It would be a shame to waste it.

Multiple Personality Obama?

Does Barack Obama show one face to Steve Hildebrand and one face to the Christian media, or is this U.S. News & World Report story bogus?

Must Read: Insider says Obama didn't know contents of DOJ brief

Today's must read is a Rex Wockner interview with an Obama insider that puts a number of LGBT issues in perspective.

• That awful Department of Justice brief on the Defense of Marriage Act? (Obama didn't read the brief before it was filed.)
• Does Obama get the need for LGBT equality in his gut and heart? (Yes.)
• Has the LGBT community done a good job of lobbying Congress? (No.)
• Should the community put an increasing amount of pressure on Congress and Obama? (Yes, yes, yes!)
  

The insider in the interview is Steve Hildebrand, an openly gay man who served as the president's deputy national campaign director during the election.

I've met Hildebrand, and I know his connection to Obama. When Hildebrand speaks, we should all listen because his history with Obama pre-dates the campaign. Hildebrand was one of a handful of politicos who sat with Barack and Michelle Obama as the couple mulled over whether or not to even enter the campaign.

The other reason I value Hildebrand's observations is that he doesn't hold back from acknowledging political reality. He notes that if the LGBT community doesn't pressure the administration and Congress and if we don't prove our political might, we will never get the support we need to win equality.

That kind of political hardball shouldn't be necessary. In an ideal world, our senators and representatives would vote their conscience, but we don't live in a perfect world. When you get right down to it, politics is the art of convincing a bunch of frightened folks that they won't lose their jobs if they make the right vote.

In Praise of Obama

I've been rather unhappy with our new president lately, particularly when it comes to LGBT rights, but I want to praise him for holding a White House reception commemorating Stonewall. In particular, I'm throwing him a laurel for his speech to the assembled LGBT leaders and their families.

Words matter. The support of the President of the United States matters. When Obama talks about our families and our rights with respect, he has the power to move hearts.

Action also matters, of course. I still believe that LGBT people should keep their wallets tightly closed until Obama and Congressional Democrats move on our issues. But today isn't a day for fury, at least not in my mind.

Kudos to the President and First Lady for speaking up for the revolutionary concept that all Americans are fully human and deserve to be treated with dignity.

Chris Geidner (AKA Law Dork) has a good piece on what Obama failed to say in his speech.

Here's video of the event.

Making the news

I open my mouth and get myself and this blog into the newspaper.

If Diane Silver’s blog reflects the sentiments of gay and lesbian Americans in the heartland, President Barack Obama is fast losing a serious fan base.

Obama extends "too little, too late" benefits to LGBT federal employees

President Obama took a first step yesterday in fulfilling his campaign promises to LGBT America. He signed a memo aimed at extending a tiny number of benefits -- not health insurance -- to the same-sex spouses of federal employees, but as has been noted by many others, this is far too late and too little.

So far, the administration has an awful record on LGBT rights. At this point, Obama is relying on token action and empty words. Yesterday's memo is a start, but it falls far short of what LGBT families desperately need now.

I agree with Mixner. From The New York Times:

“I think it’s insulting,” David Mixner, a prominent gay rights advocate, said of the new benefits plan. “Without minimizing how it will improve lives to some extent, what they said to us today is we will give you family leave, some things like that, but the most important thing, health care, we’re not giving you.”

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin is more positive. Rachel Maddow interviews Baldwin:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

HRC's Joe Solmonese comments on Keith Olbermann:


Meanwhile, two more people have pulled out of the Democratic National Committee fundraiser in protest over the DOJ DOMA brief. These include prominent donor Bruce Bastian who says he's closing his wallet to the party.

People for the American Way has started a Dump DOMA petition.

Great Job Joe! The Human Rights Campaign takes on Obama

HRC President Joe Solmonese speaks up on DOJ's hideous DOMA brief in an open letter to President Obama.

(A)lthough I and other LGBT leaders have introduced ourselves to you as policy makers, we clearly have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours. I know this because this brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you.

Incompetent or Truthful? Why did the Obama Department of Justice do this?

Is the Obama Administration merely incompetent or stating what it really feels in the now notorious DOJ brief defending DOMA? I waver back and forth between being outraged at this apparent betrayal and being baffled. Doesn't Obama want our support? Is he this much of a liar or is his administration completely disorganized when it comes to LGBT issues?

Andrew Sullivan shares my feelings.

I'm baffled by this, I really am. The content of this brief is a massive political error from an administration that is making it impossible for its gay supporters to stay supportive. What's next? A Clintonian political ad boasting of these arguments?

In case anyone has forgotten, Bill Clinton's re-election campaign ran a radio ad touting the fact that he had signed DOMA.

Let's be clear: DOMA hurts people. It damages children. It cripples families. And the Obama Administration is defending this immoral mess?

Obama, DOMA, Bus, Incest: Not quite that, but still bad enough

Box Turtle Bulletin notes that Obama's DOJ does appear to have thrown us under the bus, but argues that Americablog goes too far in claiming that the Justice Department is pulling out the old incest argument to support DOMA.

Obama appears to have just thrown LGBT America under the bus

It's beginning to look like it Obama just threw us under the bus -- and broke a campaign promise while doing so. In a 54-page brief defending (DEFENDING!!!) the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama's Justice Department compares marriage equality to incest and trots out every other familiar homophobic attack on LGBT people.

You can read the brief here.

Kudos to Americablog for getting the brief and breaking the details of the story. John Aravosis write:

I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).

Pam Spaulding writes, and the emphasis is hers:

Friends, is this is the watershed mark, the line in the sand, the utter moral betrayal of this administration in black and white? Does this mean that we are not only expendable to this Administration, but that it has decided we can also be vilified as a constituency at will and not receive any blowback? That's balls. A brief with language like this could have been written by Liberty Counsel it's so homophobic; that it's written in legalese doesn't blunt the arguments being made here. It will be used to cause lasting damage to future civil rights gains.

I'm just now going through the brief in detail, but it is certainly looking like Pam is right.

LGBT groups and the ACLU express outrage.

See Americablog for breaking news.

On Obama & DADT: "He's a coward, bigot and a pathological liar."

James Pietrangelo II, the former Army infantryman and lawyer whose "don't ask, don't tell" case was declined by the Supreme Court yesterday, is furious with President Obama. I'm beginning to wonder if Pietrangelo is right.

Time magazine reports:

"He's a coward, a bigot and a pathological liar," Pietrangelo said (of Obama) in an interview with TIME shortly after the high court declined to hear his appeal. "This is a guy who spent more time picking out his dog, Bo, and playing with him on the White House lawn than he has working for equality for gay people."

Yesterday I bought into a Washington Post report that claimed SLDN approved of the decision. My mistake. SLDN isn't quite as happy as it might have first seemed, although they're playing the political angle.

What bothers me the most is the arguments the Obama Administration used in this case. Time reports:

"Applying the strong deference traditionally afforded to the Legislative and Executive Branches in the area of military affairs, the court of appeals properly upheld the statute," argued Elena Kagan, who as Solicitor General represents the Administration before the Supreme Court. The bar on gays serving openly is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion," her 12-page filing added.

How the heck does Obama work to overturn DADT when his administration just said that it's rational? What kind of "fierce advocacy" is this????

Court sides with Obama Administration & turns down DADT review

As news comes that now even conservatives overwhelmingly support repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military, the Supreme Court refuses to take a case challenging the constitutionality of the ban. This may actually be a good move, although it's a tad early to tell.

The court was siding with the Obama Administration, which "had urged the justices not to hear the appeal against the policy, even though Obama is on record as opposing it."

The Washington Post reports that Servicemembers Legal Defense Network supports this move. SLDN allegedly is arguing that a separate case now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is a better test of DADT. That case concerns former Air Force Maj. Margaret Witt.

Good point

From AmericaBlog on the blogstorm about the Human Rights campaign and DADT:

(N)o one believes that the White House has any intention of doing anything, regardless of any timetable.

That is, I think, the conundrum HRC is facing. If the White House has decided to distance itself from the gay community (and that's certainly what the community believes), and HRC is seen as in cahoots with that White House, the community will naturally assume that HRC signed off on the White House's effort to put gay rights on the back burner indefinitely.
....
People may generally love Obama. But gay people are pissed. And growing more so by the day. The overall impression in the gay community is that we've been, or are about to be, had by this administration; that someone in Obama-land (rhymes with Rahm) is telling the President that we're political pariahs who must be shunned at all costs. You don't get brownie points for being seen with those kind of friends.

My take: He's right on the money.

Political IQ: The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Wimp Out

My new Political IQ column is out:

Aaron Belkin, Nathaniel Frank, Gregory Herek, Elizabeth Hillman, Diane Mazur and Bridget Wilson took Barack Obama's last excuse away. Read more

Don't ask, don't tell, won't bother

Once again LGBT Americans are told they don't matter.

A tiny sign of truce in the culture war

The idea that an openly gay man would be appointed as the federal government's top HR person is so uncontroversial these days that most of the members of the Senate committee didn't even show up for his confirmation hearing.

I remember a time when furious Bible-toting folks would have been picketing such hearings. Today President Obama's nominee to head the Office of Personnel Management, M. John Berry, even introduced his life partner without causing a stir.

And so it goes...

The New York Times misses the mark

Wow. It's a huge leap of faith/imagination/conjecture to jump from a story saying that the Obama Administration is bracing for a populist backlash to a story implying that the sole reason President Obama is taking action against AIG is to avert a backlash.

In other words, the Times' lede paints Obama as a callous jerk who doesn't care about the people of this country, doesn't care about right vs. wrong, doesn't even care about what AIG is doing. Yup, Obama only cares about politics, or at least that's the impression one gets from reading this story.

Personally, I'd be amazed if Obama isn't as furious at AIG as I am.

“Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses at all, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Mr. Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”