Once again we witness the hypocrisy of this administration's actions toward gay rights. The government does not have to defend a law it believes is unconstitutional. Indeed, the claim that they must defend all laws is on very shaky ground. But the administration has gotten away with this because they have refused to say whether the president believes Don't Ask, Don't Tell is constitutional.
He says he is not on the Supreme Court:
THE PRESIDENT: It’s not a simple yes or no question, because I’m not sitting on the Supreme Court. And I’ve got to be careful, as President of the United States, to make sure that when I’m making pronouncements about laws that Congress passed I don’t do so just off the top of my head.
Well, it looks like he just got appointed to the Supreme Court:
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House was not surprised to learn of the ruling striking down the individual insurance mandate, and that the Justice Department will likely appeal.
"Our belief is that the healthcare act will go forward, and that it is constitutional," he said.
Newly minted Justice Obama is likely correct - the law is probably constitutional. But it's interesting that they can pick and choose which laws they're willing to say are aligned with the meaning of the constitution. I think it would be nice for a sitting president to admit that a blatantly discriminatory law against a whole class of people is unjustified and repugnant to the constitution.
And this isn't the first time they've directly addressed the constitutionality of the health care law. I wrote back on October 28th that there had already been a few instances of this. The truth is the president just doesn't want to admit that he doesn't think antigay discrimination violates the constitution. He doesn't care.
Clearly, gay rights have never been something he sincerely wanted to fight for. This became obvious when it took him over a year to make some calls to senators on behalf of DADT repeal efforts. He hasn't been involved in this at all, aside from a sentence in the State of the Union address last year. Senator Levin, hardly an Obama critic, recently said that it's clear to him that the president lacks the will to fight against antigay discrimination. If someone like Levin, who is not at all focused on the advancement of LGBT rights, can see this imagine what activists think about the president at this time.
The claim that he can't address the constitutionality of antigay discrimination is bogus. It's just as bogus as his position on the banning of LGBT people from marrying the person that they love. He is completely detached from LGBT rights on a personal level and he's playing politics with our rights. And this is from a guy who went out of his way to promise the gay community that he'd support us through all our tough fights.
Does the White House not think we'd notice the hypocrisy? Do they think we'll forget his unwillingness to address the constitutionality of DADT just a few months back? I guess he thinks we don't pay attention. Very unsurprising, since he and his advisers don't know much about the gay rights movement and they don't know how to address LGBT people. He talks about "fierce urgency" but he doesn't see how desperate and urgent our fight is becoming at this time. We reached a tipping point after the passage of Prop. 8. It energized us to fight for what we want right now. We are no longer content with a politician saying things to us, or talking about gay people in a speech. It is time for the government to stop taking our rights away and our president needs to get onboard this train or he'll be left behind on the wrong side of history.