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.

Serious concerns about the accuracy of Americablog reports

I have neglected following up on this, and I'm rushing now to get back to friends who have just come into town, so here's the short version: There are now serious concerns being expressed about the accuracy of some of Americablog's reports on the DOJ DOMA brief.

At issue is whether the DOJ has much leeway in defending an existing law and whether the DOJ brief compared same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia. Lawdork says John Aravosis is flat-out wrong. Alex Blaze also complains.

Lawdork and Alex are making good points. We need to listen to them.

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.

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.

Obama calls LGBT rights civil rights

[updated to include quotes]
The news is all over the LGBT corner of the web this morning: Barack Obama has posted his official agenda for LGBT people on his transition web site. 365gay.com has a good overview. Except for the lack of marriage equality, it's a fine agenda and matches his campaign promises, including repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and a transgender-inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

But most commentators are missing something rather important in this seemingly normal post on Change.gov. LGBT rights are discussed on the Civil Rights page. In other words, Obama is declaring that our rights are civil rights. It's stating the obvious, but this is an enormously important distinction. If our rights truly are nothing more than civil rights, then how can anyone oppose them?

By the way, the top of Obama's Civil Rights page includes this quote:

"The teenagers and college students who left their homes to march in the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery; the mothers who walked instead of taking the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry and cleaning somebody else's kitchen -- they didn't brave fire hoses and Billy clubs so that their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would still wonder at the beginning of the 21st century whether their vote would be counted; whether their civil rights would be protected by their government; whether justice would be equal and opportunity would be theirs.... We have more work to do."

-- Barack Obama, Speech at Howard University, September 28, 2007

The top of the LGBT section on the Civil Rights page has this quote:

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."

-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

Obama talks strategy on gays in the military & marriage equality

Philadelphia Gay News Publisher Mark Segal finally got his interview with Barack Obama. The Democratic nominee says he won't pull a George W. Bush and sneak a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" into a signing statement. Obama also talks strategy for repealing the Orwellian named Defense of Marriage Act.

I think Obama's strategy is right. It's scary. I want him to jump up and down and scream that he'll ram equality down the throats of anyone who disagrees with him. That kind of response would certainly be emotionally satisfying, but it wouldn't bring about a lasting victory for us.

By the way, Segal also asked for an interview with John McCain, but (here's a shock) McCain declined.