I get the impression that our friend jesus is not so much pro gay rather he just wants to take the opportunity to call Obama a disgusting bigot. Call me crazy but I have not seen him in any of the numerous threads proclaiming his support for alternative lifestyles(I don’t read them all and I don’t make lists of who posts what so I could be wrong). I’m getting that trolly vibe.
Abraham Lincoln is one of my personal heroes but the above picture is not accurate. This article on Wikipedia shows him to be a mass of contradictions on the issues of slavery and racial equality. Essentially, Lincoln saw the abolition of slavery not as an end in itself but as a potential means of ending the rebellion and reuniting the country. In other words - if he didn’t need to abolish slavery to win the war, he saw no reason to do it. In fact he actively prevented Union generals from declaring emancipation for slaves of territory they’d conquered in the early years of the struggle. Prior to the war he advocated not the abolition, but the limitation, of slavery to the states where it already existed and then leaving well enough alone. At the war’s end he wasn’t in favor of universal suffrage but extending it only to “intelligent” Blacks and those who had helped the Union in some extraordinary way.
Despite all this, the one thing Lincoln did right was realize what was absolutely necessary to do, and then do it. As the war progressed he realized that abolition of slavery would weaken the Confederate war effort, and once he understood that he wasted no time in declaring emancipation. I think it’s reasonable to argue that if he’d lived he would have changed his position on Black suffrage as well. Not because of his personal magnanimity but because the work of the Freedman’s Bureau and the demands of the newly freed slaves would likely have pushed him there.
That’s the lesson we need to draw regarding Obama’s position on gay marriage. He won’t support any state or federal constitutional changes banning gay marriage, and he says he wants to repeal some of the acts (like DOMA) that his fellow Democrats helped pass. That’s a good thing, despite his personal opinions on the subject. What we - gay, straight, black and white - need to do is organize to push him to hold good on that promise and even work towards pushing him further. In short - hold his goddamned feet to the fire. He won’t do anything if we don’t.
Oh wait, this is the Pit, isn’t it? Fuck JHC up the ass with an overseer’s bullwhip for being such a troll.
I think I forgot for a few minutes this afternoon. Sorry, and thanks for the reminder.
As someone who has participated in that pile-on, and who also both volunteered and voted for PE Obama, let me say that I, too,believe his position on same-sex marriage to be bigotry. But he’s a far sight better than Senator McCain, and I am not a single-issue voter.
Get back to /b/, dumbass. Your kind doesn’t belong here.
His opposition to SSM is purely political semantics. He supports civil unions, he is pro-GLBT and we all understand that he had to SAY he’s opposed to giving state sanction to the word “marriage” or he could never have gotten elected.
What you won’t see Obama doing is signing any anti-gay legislation or supporting any fucking amendments. He’s not a bigot at all, he’s a pragmatist. Support for all the same legal rights of marriage but just calling itself on the paperwork is a very empty victory for the 'phobes. Remember, it’s only the government that wouldn’t be calling it “marriage.” Everybody else would still call it marriage, it would have the same rights and a semantic technicality on the paperwork would be a triviality which would be so ignored and unimportant that after a decade or two of same sex unions becoming commonplace and boring, the paperwork will be cleaned up with little notice or fanfare.
Dio, while I agree with you, and while I was, like you, willing for forgive PE Obama his political realism, his willingness to compromise on this issue is nevertheless immoral and wrong. Imagine if he were a white politician and the issue were interracial marriage: would not his willingness to capitulate to bigotry for the sake of political expedience be wrong?
Yeah, but it’s really frustrating to hear what basically boils down to: be nice, if you want equal rights from us.
Why should you - the collective you that is - have any say in whether I have rights? How dare you tell me I better be nice?
Gays have been nice. We give you good haircuts. We give you funny comedy shows. We plant pretty flowers in our lawns. We help little old ladies cross the street. We’ve been fucking nice! And we still hear, “you really should be nice if you want us to grant you equal rights.”
That’s so fucking hard to hear in this day and age. I’ll be nice to you if I’m hoping you’ll give me that last slice of pizza. I don’t have to be nice to you to expect equal fucking rights in this country!
Well, there’s not much you can do to change perception of the issue from the loser’s seat, especially given the fact that the alternative would have been a much worse scenario for the cause.
I don’t see it as capitulation, but pragmatic politics. What matters is that he still supports giving them the same rights as marriage, so what difference does it make what it’s called on the paperwork?
Far from seeing civil unions as a capitulation, I see it as an okey doke for the fundies. It really gives them nothing. It’s a trick. They get a word on some paperwork that no one ever reads. Outside of the paperwork, it;s still marriage, it has the same rights of marriage and it’s still CALLED marriage by everyone but the government.
It’s not a compromise on rights, it’s a way to sucker the opposition into thinking they’ve won something when they’ve really given away the store.
If you really think it through, getting the same rights of marriage by calling it something else is such a win for the gays, the homophobes would be insulted if they had any brains.
Obama is Jim Halpert and the gay haters are Dwight Schrute. It’s a trick.
“It’'s not marriage, it’s schmarriage.”
“Ok, then, as long as it’s not marriage.”
Maybe I’ve said too much. I don’t want to give it away.
Duly noted.
Now get gone, troll, back to the bridge you slunk from.
I understand that. I even agree that he would have been foolish to come right out and espouse support for gay marriage. But the moral absolutist part of me still says it was dishonorable. But that part of me is small; most of me believes in contextual ethics, as honesty is not the only virtue.
Not about me, by any stretch of the imagination. Its not my mind you need to change. Whether you are nice to me or not will not alter my commitment to justice in the slightest. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn, because its not about you either.
I don’t disagree with you, Dio. But there’s such a thing as a slippery slope. I think Obama is adroit and firm-willed enough not to fall on this slope, but it’s always a danger.
Espousing support for gay marriage would not play well at all with this demographic.
Except the slippery slope leads down in the RIGHT direction. Look at what Dio said with clear eyes and you will see that he is right, that we’ve been slipping down the slope to full rights for gays for some time. Obama tossed a sop to the fundies with NO REAL MEANING, and one that will have its “paperwork” cleaned up after a while.
Help me understand. Obama isn’t the governor of any state. Is he going to pass and enforce a federal law creating a domestic partnership or union law, nationwide?
Probably not, but he isn’t going to support any federal bans on it either, and you’ll see more GLBT friendly Supreme Court appointments.
It’s not like he would be able to do anything to federally legalize SSM either. Basically, he’s going to be a guy who can stop anything more from getting taken away on a federal level and can move SCOTUS back to the left. That’s about all you can expect even the most pro-gay President to be able to do.
Priorities, priorities. Gay couples will be allowed to get married eventually (and at least for the time being they’re allowed to openly cohabit, which was not the case two generations ago). But the economy is in the crapper now. We have two American occupations of foreign countries to deal with now.
FWIW, The Netherlands has implemented gay marriage in the same way that Obama proposes.
1998 saw the legislation of civil unions for same-sex couples; that was an high enough hurdle to take;
2001 saw the legislation of marriage for same-sex couples. Apparently, when legalizing civil unions for ss couples didn’t cause any (political) disasters, marriage soon followed.