For months the GLBT community has expressed a lot of anger and frustration at the Obama Administration for its lack of support of equality for the GLBT community. Time and time again, the administration has come off being utterly tone deaf at best all while claiming to support equality. There "support," however, has been limited to a few speeches while there action and inactions have told a very different story, a story of homophobia and betrayal of a a constituency that is solidly Democratic and delivered over 70% of their votes for the President in 2008, second only to the African-American community in percentage of support from minority communities.
First, let's see a reminder of what candidate Obama said during the campaign
I'm going to emphasize of quote from that towards the end where then Senator Obama said "when it comes to my attitudes about whether this is a priority or not, I will put it at the top of the list along with many other issues."
So has Obama made it a priority? Is he keeping his promises?
The simple answer from the GLBT community is a resounding NO.
Obama on the Legislative front
For many years now there have been four issues sitting atop the list of GLBT legislative issues: passage of an inclusive hate crimes act, a repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy, passage of an inclusive employment non-discrimination act and repeal of the D[enial] of Marriage Act. Those four are by no means comprehensive of the legislative agenda the GLBT community wants, but given the shear length of time many of those items have been at the top (ENDA in some form of fashion has been sought since 1974), no other GLBT legislative issues can crack the list until some items start being checked off the list.
We are 15 months into the Obama Administration. Historically, the first 12-15 months of any administration are the most productive of their potential 8 years (96 months) in office. So much of the remaining trim is spent in mid-term election mode, re-election mode and lame duck mode where Congress pretty much ignores the President. In this time period, which featured the largest Democratic majorities in both houses in more than a generation, only one item got checked off the list, the hate crime act, and it did so despite Obama, not because of him.
Hate Crimes Act
Obama spoke publicly pushing for the Hate Crimes act just once prior to the House vote on it…The day before the vote, when the whip count for passage was already way past the 218 votes needed, Obama issued this statement:
This week, the House of Representatives is expected to consider H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance – legislation that will enhance civil rights protections, while also protecting our freedom of speech and association. I also urge the Senate to work with my Administration to finalize this bill and to take swift action.
After clearing the House and moving to the Senate, it sat, for almost four months with not a word of pressure from the President, with only two mentions of it crossing his lips, both targeted not at Congress (or more specifically the Senate which was always going to be the more difficult chamber) but at the GLBT community: a June reception held in response to the firestorm created by a DOJ brief in a marriage equality case and again about 10 days before the Senate passed the hate crimes act as part of the DOD reauthorization act to the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner. Obama also made sure to have his picture taken with Judy Shepard, the mother of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard. He was supposed to have a 10 minute meeting with her, but it turned into less than a few minutes, some of which was taken up by the photo op.
It has been reported in the media that the Obama administration feels they haven't gotten enough credit from the GLBT community for the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Protection Act, but the administration wasn't willing to apply the pressure to get the act through in a more timely fashion, at least not publicly. If they aren't willing to do that, they don't deserve credit. Mentioning just before it passes overwhelmingly in the House (with 18 Republicans ayes and several Democratic bigots (17 D nays)) doesn't cut it. Mentioning it twice to the GLBT community and no where else doesn't cut it. We don't need to be told of the importance of passing it. Trust us, Mr. President, we already know. Getting your picture taken with a true saint for GLBT quality, and unfortunately the mother of a martyr in our community, doesn't cut it either. You want credit, work for it.
Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
In an interview with Chris Wallace late in March 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that discussions had begun about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but that "dialog […] has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration. I think the President and I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit." Two months later, WH press secretary Robert Gibbs even confirmed that discussion was underway and that the President was involved:
Q: So you had said that the President is working with the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on "don't ask, don't tell," but earlier this week the Pentagon said that the conversations were "initial" and that there is "no sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell.'" So I wanted to give you a chance to correct the Pentagon on that.
And I have two other questions. What other policies are there --
MR. GIBBS: If you ask like that you're going to get bumped up to, like, the first row. (Laughter.)
Let me address the first question because, if I'm not mistaken, the Pentagon did correct that statement on efforts regarding the reform on "don't ask, don't tell."
Q: So there are active conversations happening now?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. Yes.
Q: Okay. And then I wanted to know if there are any other policies that the President believes to be, as you said yesterday about "don't ask, don't tell," not in our national interest but is content to let Congress take the lead on? And second, President Truman didn't see it necessary to clear desegregation through Congress, so how is this different?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe I was -- maybe I used some poor language, but the President is involved in these discussions. It was the President's commitment to overturn the policy that's not in our national interest that is the reason for these discussions and for the effort to overturn this. So I think the notion somehow -- the reason Congress is involved is the only durable and lasting way with which to overturn the policy is to do it by law.
However, in February of this year we learned that they weren't working on it. Gates stated that after the State of the Union he was ordered by the President to begin making the preparations for repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but they want to spend yet another year "studying" repeal despite the fact that no less than a dozen studies on gays in the military exist, including several from the military itself, dating back to the 1950's.
Both Gates and Joint Chiefs Chair Admiral Mullen spoke definitively against the current policy but didn't address the issue of whether the law instituting Don't Ask, Don't Tell should be repealed now or later, but did oppose a moratorium. But from the political standpoint, a repeal is necessary now. It is almost an absolute certainty that Democrats will lose seats in Congress, both the House and Senate, in the mid-term elections. Waiting until after the election further endangers the stated goal of a repeal of this insidious law. It is worth noting that polling by multiple outlets shows the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of a repeal, including a majority of self described conservatives and a majority of those that attend church weekly.
After Gates and Mullen's testimonies, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin Powell announced no longer agrees with his anti-gay testimony of 17 years prior joining former Joint Chiefs Chairman General John Shalikashvili in speaking out against the DADT policy. This put surprising pressure on Obama and Congress to start moving on a repeal, something we are continuing to see, the Obama administration doesn't actually want to occur. Today we have learned that the administrations' legislative liaisons are telling members of Congress to not repeal the law this year after weeks of silence from the White House on the repeal effort. Any time the question had been asked about repeal this year, the White House deflected and moved the answer to simply opposing the current policy and favoring its repeal at some indeterminate point in the future. Not once, but twice openly gay representative Barney Frank has denounced the White House's zipped lip approach towards Congress saying that the White House must speak up on the issue if a repeal is to happen this year. He walked back his criticism both times (it is rumored that Frank wants to be appointed HUD secretary in a second Obama term) not wanting to appear too critical of the President, finally deciding on the term "muddled" to describe the administration's tact on DADT.
"Muddled" not more. Obama opposes a repeal of DADT this year. Obama wants to wait until after a repeal will become extremely difficult to impossible. He wants to wait for a "study" whose methodology is already coming under scrutiny for anti-gay bias. Recently a forum was held with randomly selected servicemembers to get their feelings on DADT and gays serving openly in the military. It was done as a large group, and members were expected to state their position publicly, rather than in one-on-one with the study group members. This is very likely to stifle open, honest discussion, opening members up to peer pressure and retribution. Additionally reports have surfaced of the questions to service members on gays in the military being presents one whether DADT should be repealed, not on how a repeal should be implemented. One general has already been admonished for publicly speaking out against repeal, but will not be officially disciplined. The Army secretary also has publicly stated that if the policy is repealed, it is very possible the military will set up segregated units of gays and lesbians, including separate barracks.
In short, the Obama administration's approach on Don't Ask, Don't tell has been an unmitigated disaster. Here, unlike with the Hate Crimes Act, they aren't applying pressure, they are actively seeking to delay a legislative resolution of the issue and doing so in a manner likely to inflame the enmity of the GLBT community.
If by some miracle a repeal of DADT passes next year, it will take tremendous pressure from the administration, pressure they have shown in issue after issue (non-GLBT related included) they will not apply. If a repeal doesn't pass this year, we aren't likely to see it until a second term, a term GLBT's will be significantly less inclined to help Obama win due to his less than supportive track recored heretofore.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Early on, GLBT activists were told that ENDA wold be the next priority piece of GLBT legislation after the hate crimes act, which was seen as the easiest to pass since it had previously passed both houses of Congress in 2007 but failed to be included in the final bill Congress sent to Mr 20% approval rating Bush because Bush threatened to veto the entire defense bill if the bill came to him with the hate crimes act attached. The Democrats surrendered.
The forerunner to ENDA was first proposed in Congress in 1974, thirty-six years ago. This early act would have banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing, credit and public accommodations by bungeeing sexual orientation into the provisions of U.S. Code created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing and Credit Acts. After failing several times, in the mid 1980's a decision was made to change the approach, of paring down the bill to just employment protections and not injecting it into the same section of U.S. Code where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is codified. In the quarter century since, Congress has failed to pass this legislation despite strong majorities of Americans favoring equal employment opportunities for gays and lesbians as evidenced by Gallup poling dating back to the late 70's. The question has always polled at over 50% of Americans favoring equal employment rights, with over 80% of Americans agreeing since Bill Clinton took Office. The last time Gallup asked the question in 2008, 89% of Americans agreed.
The goal of getting ENDA passed this time around, in 2009, failed. All the Republicans had to do was bring up the "trainees in the bathroom" strawman to get the Democrats running for cover. Democrats rare hinting they might finally act on the bill in the House later this month in committee and in the full House next month. But once again the problem is the Senate. Obama is going to have to push the Senate to do its job and pass this important piece of legislation which is long, long, long past overdue. So far, nary a mention of the bill from the White House outside of speeches directed at the GLBT community.
Repeal of the D[enial] of Marriage Act
We finally have a bill to repeal DOMA by New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, however neither the White House or Congress has expressed a lick of interest in even discussion the bill. The White House has brought up the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act, which would extend partner benefits to government employees. They touted it in response to judicial action I'll discuss below. legislatively speaking however, the DPBO is ready and Congress is waiting to act on it…waiting on the administration. Before Congress will proceed on moving to pass the DPBO, it wants a report on the impact of passage from the administration's Office of Personnel Management, the OPM, which is headed by an openly gay man, the highest openly gay individual in the Obama administration. For months Congress has been waiting on the report with no response from the OPM.
Obama on the Judicial front
I won't go into too much depth here as I've previously diaries on this issue several times, most recently in response to brief filed recently by the Obama administration in the court case against Don't Ask, Don't Tell by the Log Cabin Republicans, which blatantly used outdated statements and testimony including misrepresenting the position of General Powell by using his 17 year old virulently homophobic statements to "prove" DADT is constitutional while ignoring his recent statements and twisting statements by Nathaniel Frank and Aaron Belkin of the Palm Center to imply they said the exact opposite of what they did say.
The diary also discussed the recent brief in the case of Golinski v the Office of Personnel Management and how it tried to overturn two long settled legal principles, res judicata and immunity, with respect to THE GAY. For earlier diaries that discuss the administration's anti-gay actions in the Golinski matter, see Obama, OPM defy court order and Obama hypocrisy on GLBT equality.
It also talks about the brief that set off the firestorm last summer, the one in the marriage equality case that referred to incest and ephebophilia to justify opposition to marriage equality, bringing up a less noticed provision of the briefs that is equally problematic and insulting.
After the brief last summer and the spat over the DOJ refusing to meet with lawyers in the Massachusetts Gill v OPM case until after publicity compelled them otherwise, the Obama administration created a GLBT liaison position at the DOJ. As of yet, we haven't seen any positive affect from it in how the administration handles GLBT civil rights cases. The DOJ is still defending evil, despicable discrimination using at best marginally rational justifications including some supported by nothing more than bigoted Congressional findings of "fact" that were designed to reach a conclusion without any actual study.
Obama on the Executive front
Perhaps worst than the action and inaction discussed above on the legislative and judicial fronts is the lack of action on the executive front, in areas where Obama can act freely.
On the policy front of this, during the transition, Obama's transition team met with a group of GLBT activists, among them Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The NGLTF had compiled a list of suggestions recommended by various GLBT advocacy groups and gave it to the administration. The list consisted of 82 things the Obama administration could do for the GLBT community, a list of 82 things that require NO congressional approval, a list of 82 things, most of which would at most merit a sentence buried deep in the Federal section of the Post or somewhere in the Times, but unlikely to be reported elsewhere outside the GLBT press. Fifteen months into the Obama administration, it has done exactly ONE out of the 82 items. First on the list is the failure of the Obama administration to extend current executive orders prohibiting discrimination in Federal employment to our transgendered brothers and sisters by adding gender identity and expression.
It only likely to make us more pissed off if he is holding back on the 81 remaining items for his re-election and expects us to be grateful for giving us what we want after stringing us a long for three plus years. You don't get extra credit but rather counted off for delaying actions you should have been taking all along.
On personnel matters, Obama expects the community to be satisfied with token appointments. It is true Obama has appointed more openly LGBT people than any President, but that's not a huge accomplishment given the dearth of prior administrations and the rate still does not approach a level commiserate with the percentage of GLBT's in the general population. For example, the administration has touted its appointment of an openly GLBT ambassador, something done not only by Bill Clinton, but also George W. Bush. Moreover, there are in the neighborhood of 200 ambassadorships, so to be proportional with the number of GLBT's, you'd expect anywhere from 4 to 6 if you use a conservative estimate of 2 or 3% for the proportion of the population that is GLBT. Having 6 GLBT ambassadors would be an accomplishment. Having one, just like your two predecessors isn't. There isn't a single openly gay cabinet officer. The highest GLBT appointment in the administration isn't even in a policy position, but rather a personnel one. On judicial vacancies, I haven't heard of him appointing a single GLBT judge. There are over 860 Article III judgeships authorized by law with over 100 of those currently being vacant. Again, using a figure of 2-3% would mean there ought to be 17-26 openly GLBT judges. There is currently one (appointed by Clinton). While filling 17-26 of the 100+ vacancies with GLBT's would be unlikely, you have to start somewhere. There are more than enough qualified GLBT people such that the president could put a half dozen on the bench, perhaps including a particular judgeship that is coming open for this nation's highest court. Legal scholars Pam Karlan and Kathleen Sullivan ought to be more than just a passing look. They aren't even on the short list though the short list reputedly has two closeted lesbians on it.
Obama on a Personal Level
In addition to all of the policy problems with the Obama administration, Obama has personally done quite a bit to insult the gay community on a more personal level. Using Donnie McClurkin during the campaign and the condescending "happy gays" statement his campaign made afterwards, using Prop 8 cheerleader Doug Kmiec as a campaign "faith surrogate" in California during the Prop 8 campaign, using Rick Warren to give the Inaugural invocation, using right wing code language when opposing about marriage equality and supporting segregationist unions for same sex couples, joking about marriage equality at the correspondents dinner and removing and softening pro-GLBT language from the White House website. Inviting the Gays to a cocktail party or the Easter Egg Roll hardly makes up for these.
When we can judge Obama
Several times over the last year I've posted a snarky calendar of when its OK with the topic of GLBT rights to be broached with the Obama Administration. It was meant to be a joke, but has unfortunately become increasingly prescient. For those that haven't seen it:
The Official DailyKos Obama-Apologist Calendar of When it is Acceptable to Bring up the Topic of Gay Rights
- He just got into office for f*ck's sake. Just STFU for now!
- It's still early and he has a lot more important things to deal with. Just wait your turn and we'll get around to it later.
- We've got midterm elections to win. You can't expect us to address gay rights and run for office at the same time so just STFU! We'll get get to gay rights after the election.
- We're exhausted. We just had an election. The new Congress hasn't even started yet. Just lay off on the "gay rights" stuff til later.
- We have to get Obama re-elected. Presidential elections take up the full two years of the cycle and you can't expect Obama to kowtow to left wing GLBT activist extremists and expect win moderate votes, so just STFU!
- We just won re-election. Can you please just let us bask in the glow of that until after the inauguration?
- This Obama's last chance to really govern. We have real issues to deal with without making it seem we're beholden to some fringe special interest extremists like the GLBT community.
- Why are y'all just bring up gay rights now in the 7th year of President Obama's term? You guys didn't work for it and don't deserve to have your issues addressed on your terms. Besides, we haven't yet had a blue ribbon commission that will examine the issue for a year and issue a report, which will be followed by a peer reviewed study of the ramifications, which will be followed by a another commission which will examine the differences between the first commission report and the study. After that commission's report is studied, we'll make a recommendation to the President who will then have to have his advisors study the issue for a while. At that point, the President may add the recommendation to his State of the Union address. So give us another three years even though we only have one left.
- The commission is still doing its work behind closed doors, so don't talk about gay rights at all. We have another Presidential election to win and we can't be seen as being for gay rights in a Presidential election. Just STFU!
- Hey GLBT activists, we're on our way out. Half the President's advisors have already left for jobs in the private sector. Congress has adjourned until the new Congress begins. We are completely and utterly powerless lame ducks. What can the Obama Administration do for you? We're here to help.
As the saying goes you have to strike when the iron is hot. Well right now its hot, we are in a better position in Congress than we are likely to see in a long time. They time has come to pass those "radical, liberal, " things like equal employment rights for GLBT's (supported by a minuscule 89% of Americans) and repealing DADT (supported by a paltry 75% of Americans including a majority of self describe conservatives and weekly church goers and according to one recent poll of teabaggers, a majority of teabaggers).
We shouldn't have to wait until 20 January 2017 to be able to judge Obama's progress on GLBT rights. Joe Solomonese insinuated such in a letter last summer and had to walk back that implication. Obama himself said at last summer's LGBT Pride reception
I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.
It is going to take a lot to fulfill that. You can't piss off people as much as Obama has and expect us to fawn over you after you belatedly fulfill your promises.
The Administration has a credibility gap on GLBT issues that is only growing. It is already leading to more provocative action like the incidents earlier last month when Lt. Dan Choi and Capt. Jim Pietrangelo handcuffed themselves to the White House fence and several activists held a sit-in in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's DC and San Francisco offices and if GetEqual is to be believed, more are planned to raise awareness of the Obama administrations all hat, no cattle limousine approach to "supporting" GLBT equality. Democrats certainly have not given the GLBT a compelling reason to continue supporting the party. It is increasingly clear that Democratic action on GLBT equality won't happen unless elected Democratic officials are made to fear for their political lives with retribution at the polls for their lack of support of the GLBT community. Few Democrats have been willing to stand up and unapologetically talk about our issues. They deserve our continued support, but those that give nothing but lip service need to be dropped by the GLBT community. No money. No volunteerism for their campaigns. No voting for them at the polls. For several months now I've supported the suggestion that in races where the Democrat is less than full throated in their support of GLBT equality and unwilling to take action on hour behalf, voters, GLBT and allies alike, ought to write-in Harvey Milk instead of voting for the Democrat. Send a message to the party of how many votes Democrats are leaving on the table by their lackluster advocacy on our behalf. We ought to be fearless in this, being unconcerned about a Republican winning instead. An anti-gay Republican is not much worse for us than an anti-gay Democrat at this point and if Democrats are going to be unconcerned with the priorities of the GLBT community, we should return the lack of concern. We've given them plenty of support over the decades to merit better treatment than we are currently receiving. If the Democrats want to avoid this mutually assured destruction by the "Write-In Harvey Milk" campaign, they have the power to stop it: Pass ENDA, Repeal DADT, Repeal DOMA and listen to the the GLBT community.