What is More Change: Gay or Black?
Precisely one week ago, Obama declared that “change has come to America,” as he became the first black president of the United States. On the very same day, Nov. 4th, 2008, the state of California voted yes on Proposition 8, legally restricting the sanctity of marriage to heterosexual couples only.
“Just how much change can a nation take in one day?” I’m ironically tempted to ask…
Prop 8: Like Icing on the Change?
On September 21, 1996, a Republican Congress passed the bill, and then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the historic Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states. According to “About.com: Lesbian Life,” Obama opposed DOMA (however, not as a senator).
With the “yes”-vote on Prop 8 last week, Massachusetts and Connecticut thus remain the only two states in which same-sex marriage is legal. In 2000, Vermont became the first state to adopt a civil unions law, granting gay and lesbian couples the same state benefits, civil rights, and protections to same-sex couples as to married couples. Since, New Jersey (2006), and New Hampshire (2007) have followed suit. Domestic partnership bills, another way of extending legal rights to same-sex couples, have been passed in the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington.
(Click here for a rundown on state-by-state marriage license laws)
Change in Sight?
In his 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, a young Senator Obama proclaimed:
“There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America – there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.”
It was this speech, which rocketed Obama to the higher echelons of US politics, and secured him a seat at the table of great American political orators. But is Obama all talk?
Under the official Obama homepage section, “Issues,” a clear stance on gay marriage is nowhere to be found – not under “Family,” or “Faith,” nor under “Education,” “Civil Rights” or “Ethics.”
However, as this video shows, Obama is not for gay marriage, he is for civil union.
Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, yesterday, Nov. 10th, made this appeal:
“On or about December 1910,” Virginia Woolf wrote, “human character changed.” We can be much more specific: “On November 4, 2008, just after 11 pm Eastern, America changed” (human character remains rather intransigent).
The change was driven by two things: our country’s remarkable capacity for regeneration, and Barack Obama’s remarkable ability to tap into the better angels of our nature.
A country can change only to the extent that the individuals within it change (and some changes come slower than others, as evidenced by Prop 8 and the other gay marriage bans that passed on Tuesday). […] Now it’s Obama’s turn to pull off this rare presidential double play.
15 years ago, in 1993, former President Clinton rolled out another gay policy, which should become known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” What was meant to “[relax] the long-standing bar against gay men and women serving in the U.S. military,” notes a 2008 TIME article, today is seen as a “liability.” “It boiled down to this: the government would no longer ‘ask’ recruits if they were gay, and so long as military personnel didn’t ‘tell’ anyone of their sexual preference — and didn’t engage in homosexual acts — they were free to serve,” TIME writes.
Then, Congress found:
The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.
But with so many challenges ahead, the questions remains, whether or not that is a debate Obama is going to be willing to take; and if yes, when? And while exit polls showed 96% of black voters voting for Obama during the recent election, exit polls from California’s Proposition 8 showed 70% of African American, and 53% of Latino, voters voting for the proposition that would ban same-sex minorities equal rights.
Obama will need as big a wave as he can get riding into the White House, and there is already pressure on him to move swiftly once in there. But he needs to come out standing. No matter what he does, he could end up losing valuable support. For someone who has stressed the need, and ability, to reach across the table, this could prove as good a test as any.
In the Media: watch as Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann give their take on gay rights
Keith Olbermann: “If this country hadn’t redefined marriage, black people couldn’t marry white people”
Bill O’Reilly:
By Peter Dahl
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3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Kolja
as sad as the approval of prop 8 is, I can’t see how gay marriage will play a substantial role in the next years in presidential politics.
it would reignite the culture wars, open up a new battle line and prove that Obama really is the radical left-wing liberal as which the McCain campaign has portrayed him. with the economy in shambles, two wars to fight and a health care reform to negotiate, gay marriage or “dont ask dont tell” are likely to be placed at the very bottom of obama’s agenda.
also, it’s a state issue. the president would only act if the congress somehow starts working on federal legislation that would infer with the states’ laws.
one last point, family value issues are always a great topic for campaigns, but they are hardly ever touched upon after a candidate has reached office. they are just too controversial.
Some people have used the prop 8 result to say that the election does not reflect a greater liberal or progressive shift of the nation. that’s the bigger question, is the change voters have asked for related to the ideological direction of the country, or just the failed politics of the bush administration? is the US as conservative as ever or did it change?
Nov 12th, 2008
Jessica
Peter,
thanks for all the background info and this thought-provoking analysis!
while I agree with Kolja on the part that this doesn’t seem to be an issue on the top of the agenda, compared to the other important causes, I wanna point out that Obama in his acceptance speech (do you call it that?) in Chicago specifically adressed citizens “gay or straight” – so I do see a much higher level of openness and acceptance toward this group. And while he hasn’t specifically opposed Prop 8, he has said in a TV interview that he doesn’t agree with re-writing a state’s constitution (as I believe Prop 8 does) to REMOVE rights from a group of people, as the constitution should be there to protect or grant rights to citizens.
But yeah, in my head I can’t quite resolve the paradoxon, either, why Barack Obama was voted into office as President while this measure was rejected in the “oh so liberal” state of California…
oh and the hypocrisy of that woman interviewed by Bill O’Reilly does amaze me- she says one thing and then completely opposes it in her next sentence, doesn’t she?
Nov 12th, 2008
Peter
Kolja, thank you for your comment.
I don’t recall writing, “playing a substantial role,” though. My point is this: one of Obama’s great strengths during the election campaign was his ability to rally supporters from a very vast democratic, and even republican, spectrum. Prop 8, in my opinion, added a question mark to his message of unity, and dismissal of the US as a nation of division. As we have seen time and time again, the Democratic base is by no stretch of the imagination an ideological monolith.
Yet, as Samuel Kernell argues in his book “Going Public,” it is crucial that a president has the ability to communicate clearly to/with the public, in order to remain empowered. The Bush presidency in many ways has become a living case-study of that. If Obama moves into the White House, and issues like Prop 8 already cause a rift within the Democratic base, I believe that does pose a challenge for him.
Granted, Obama can very well divert attention from that rift – there are plenty of issues and crises to choose from, and enough battles to pick.
I don’t agree with the notion of Obama as a radical left-wing liberal (on a European scale, Obama is even conservative on a lot of issues). He could be more assertive in his health care plan (Obama has no mandate on his – only regarding children); he supports the 2nd Amendment (right to keep and bear arms); and his tax plan is not exactly radical either.
That being said, however, I don’t think that the US is as conservative as ever – I actually do believe that both the Bush presidency, increased international isolation, and the financial crisis, have made some Americans revise their conservative stance.
And, yet, with topics like health care and education, which rank high on Obama’s agenda, (liberal) family values have invariably been pushed more to the forefront than they have been in a long time.
As always, Kolja, you have some valuable points, but I wouldn’t discard family/ethics issues like same-sex marriage just yet…Obama is going to NEED 2 terms to overhaul Washington the way he says he will, and to get that, he will need all the support he can get!
Nov 12th, 2008
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