Will Obama be Truman on Gay Rights?

[Beacool]

By David Paul Kuhn

In June, 2008, Michelle Obama came to Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria for a fundraiser with wealthy gay Democrats and spoke of civil rights struggles "from Selma to Stonewall."

Nearly one year later, gay rights issues have taken on a renewed prominence. Recent shifts in states from Iowa to New Hampshire have upped the tally to six states that now recognize same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, California's high court recently upheld a voter-approved proposition blocking gay marriage. And on Monday, the Supreme Court denied a request to review the Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly in the military.

Quiet at the center of this storm is Barack Obama.

Gay rights activists have noticed. Their patience has worn thin. Key leaders have privately expressed their frustration to top White House officials. Publicly, over the weekend, one gay rights activist proposed a march on Washington in October.

To the gay rights movement, the collage of issues is beginning to echo the crescendo of the civil rights movement in the mid 1960s. But, on social hot button issues, this is a cautious president. Obama is for now more similar to the slow-walk of John F. Kennedy than the bold action of Lyndon Johnson on civil rights, whose hand was in part forced by events like the march on Washington led by Martin Luther King Jr.

That Obama is the first black president adds one more deep and evocative layer to the decisions before him. By comparison, the choices Obama now faces are far less politically fraught than the battle Harry Truman or Johnson experienced.

The comparison between the push for progress on gay rights and the black civil rights movement remains contentious in American politics. But the Obamas' straight line from the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, a breakthrough moment in the civil rights struggle, to the Greenwich Village Stonewall Riots, which forty-years ago sparked the gay rights movement, only intensifies the moral dilemma before Obama.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/09/will_obama_be_truman_on_gay_rights_96905.html

[Democrats_win]

1. Only if it provides him with a good photo op.

Why not just add this to the list of failures? Obama is owned by the banks.

[PBS Poll-435]

2. So the banks will give free joint checking to all of the gays?

I am so confused at this point.

[Captain Hilts]

8. That's funny!

I needed that!

[Beacool]

3. Two separate issues.

I think that he'll get around to DADT sooner or later. Public opinion is in favor of eliminating it. I just wish there had been this kind of public support in 1993.

;)

[jesus_of_suburbia]

10. Me too. Public opinion has changed so much since '93, it make it much easier for politicians

to do the right thing.

[Beacool]

12. Exactly!!

Obama should be bashed if he DOESN'T do the right thing in this favorable climate. Bill Clinton tried to keep his promise to the gay community and was only able to reach a compromise that ended up pissing off everyone involved. But, people forget that some in Congress wanted to enact a Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage. DOMA and DADT were compromises, but the alternative would have been worse.

:-(

[marimour]

4. it will be done in 2010

[Bluebear]

5. 240 service members FIRED since Obama took office.

How many by 2010?

[marimour]

9. far less than when Clinton signed it and allowed it to be enforced

Its been enforced for almost 4 presidential terms (2 of them by a democrat). If Obama gets it done in 2010 he would have done more than any President we've had since it was enacted.

[Peacetrain]

6. Since it is a law, in all honesty ..not exactly like Truman

DADT will be repealed. If the President is true to form, he is needling the military as we speak to come forward. The generals will step forward and say it is time for reform, and Obama will escort them to the microphone with his hand on their back, then he will make an announcement. he is backing the repeal, and it will be fought out in the congress, since it is law, but it will be done.

Gay marriage is going to go state by state. You are going to see it on every ballot. Now here is the corker.. the right is gearing up for all out war on this one, and it will get ugly. But it is going to go grassroots.

That is my prediction for right now. Seems to be moving in that direction.

edit for spelling

[Beacool]

7. Your scenario sounds accurate.

I just wish that it had been this easy in 1993. As a young person then I couldn't understand what the big fuss was about allowing gays to serve openly in the military. But, the way the Pentagon, the RW nuts and some in Congress went on and on about it, you would have thought that Clinton was trying to legalize child pornography.

Nowadays, it would have been fairly easy to have the ban repealed before it became law.

;(

[Peacetrain]

11. I loved Bill Clinton.. the worst thing he did, and it set him up for the rest

of his administration..was caving to the right on that and the establishment of DADT in 93. It is law, now it is a different ball of wax. It set up the whole concept of hiring and firing legality based on sexuality.

It is easy to look back I know, and see things 20/20. There was such a battle in 92/93 that we tend to forget how really difficult and ugly that time was.

[Beacool]

13. Once again, it was a different era.

He didn't have the public support on this issue that Obama now has. I think that Bill did the best he could at the time.

;-)

[zipplewrath]

15. Why?

I'm curious why you would say this? What has he done to date to suggest this time line? Where do you see this "needling"? Near as I can see, from Afghanistan to Iraq as well as the torture photos, and "having the backs" of the tortures, he is deferential to the generals. He's been fairly silent up until now, except to repromise "some day". He honored Rick Warren. What part of any of this inspires trust?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

16. Agreed

I will add that I think that more states legalizing same-sex marriage will build impetus for an eventual repeal of DOMA (albeit further down the road than a repeal of DADT) because once several states legalize same-sex marriage and people suddenly realize that the sky hasn't fallen, people will realize that we don't need to "defend" marriage from gays and lesbians (we never did, of course, but that's just how some people think). Also, the legal and logistical issues related to recognition of same-sex marriage across state lines will provide further impetus for a repeal of DOMA. However, like you said, same sex marriage will begin and end at the grassroots NOT at the federal level.

[ShortnFiery]

14. What many good people who have not read HST's Presidency IN DEPTH may

fail to realize is that, other than signing the Executive Order for the integration African Americans into the mainstream Armed Serves, essentially nothing was done within his administration to protect *civil rights.*

http://books.google.com/books?id=rQbwPWTu4QMC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=%22Harry+S+Truman%22+political+integration&source=bl&ots=NY9mf40PbZ&sig=9igGSmFgf08ueZ0sR7hDf3effBE&hl=en&ei=w5MuSu_3Npi-M7aY_P0J&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPP23,M1

For example, Truman's Justice Department was so poorly led that it was incapable of protecting the constitutional rights of African Americans; it could not secure their right to vote, nor could it protect them from lynching and other acts of brutal violence. In addition, the Truman administration's housing program effectively MANDATED SEGREGATION.