If the memo isn't coupled with a call for a law to be passed giving health and retirement benefits

[dsc]

then it really isn't that great a gesture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/politics/17gays.html?ref=us

With the administration’s decision to stop short of extending full health insurance benefits or calling for legislation to do so, it remained an open question how significant the presidential announcement would be, Mr. Socarides said.

end of quote

Sure as a sign of respect for federal employees it is nice to see benefits being offered by the Administration. But if it isn't coupled with a call for health benefits, which are far and away the most important benefit to most employees, it doesn't amount to all that much. I will be anxiously awaiting tonight's signing and will take a wait and see attitude. We deserve the President we were promised. So far we haven't got him. He needs to show us something tonight.

[Phx_Dem]

1. Why don't you try writing your Congressperson instead of bitching about Obama.

I guess it's more fun to bitch about the President even though Congress is responsible for making law.

[dsc]

2. I have

even though until just last year it was Walter Jones who is more likely to climb Mt Everest than author such a bill. I am in Miller's district this year and he favors the bill. But Obama directly promised, as a reason for us to vote for him, to advocate for the repeal of DOMA. He said it over and over again when he ran against Hillary for the nomination. Now that he apparently doesn't need our votes it is "why don't you write your Congressman"

[Forkboy]

3. I guess it's more fun to whine about homosexuals than support equal rights.

[truedelphi]

6. Thank you forkboy. n/t

[Thrill]

4. Obama is an easy target

Meanwhile there are almost 60 Senators in the Senate. And yet none have put their names to legislation.

[dsc]

5. actually that is a lie

Kennedy has sponsered, in every single solitary year for the past decade, a law which would end DADT and one which would end DOMA. He hasn't this year, maybe his fucking brain tumor might, just might have something to do with that. Picking on terminally ill people, real classy.

[Thrill]

10. I'm picking on Kennedy? Oh please

you're the only one who mentioned Kennedy. Reid said NO ONE has presented legislation. So my comment is correct

[Forkboy]

7. Obama made himself an easy target by pandering to gay people when he didn't mean it.

When he shows that "fierce advocacy" he spoke so eloquently about maybe that bullseye will start to shrink.

It's called the "bully pulpit" for a reason. Obama should try using it. Leaders lead, even it's only vocally at times. Obama has done anything but lead on this issue. He's not even following someone else's lead. He sucks on this issue, plain and simple. So yes, he is an easy target, and he has no one to blame for it but himself.

Where does the buck stop?

[Thrill]

11. Is his term up yet?

He didn't say he would do it his first few months in office.

[Forkboy]

12. No time like the present for equal rights.

If you didn't have them how long could we expect you to wait patiently to get them? This is the rub. It's real easy for straight people (I'm one) to take our rights for granted, but we don't live each and every day as an unequal person in a country that touts it's equality. For us, it's an issue we deal with here on DU, or maybe with a friend or two. But at the end of the day we go to bed with our rights intact. Gay people don't. They live this every single day.

No offense, but your post is truly insensitive to these people. At what point in his term will it be fair to criticize him? 6 months? A year? When is it ok to expect to be treated equally, and to expect a president who claimed he would be a "fierce advocate" to start being one?

[Thrill]

13. Well its not like he took over

in normal times. Where he hasn't had a ton of shit on his plate. Everything doesn't have to be done in the first few months. Thats all.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Until your bill fails in Congress

As both revisions to DADT and DOMA would at this time. I suppose it would be easy enough to then go back to unitary executive theory and ask the executive branch to do what Congress wouldn't. That's fantastic.

[Forkboy]

17. Always an excuse to not even try.

Let it fail...then try again. Maybe if Obama was the fierce advocate he claimed he'd be he could sway some people to vote for it. Worth a shot, and better than not even trying.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. I was taught to count votes before I put motions on the floor

Yes, sometimes it is wiser to not try at a particular time than it is to try, fail, and thereby solidify the thing you were fighting against. No doubt this will be represented as cowardice, in the very laudable tones of the present debate. Of course, anyone who has ever tried to change policy through election at any level knows that people who don't count up the votes in advance are fools.

[Forkboy]

19. I was taught that if you don't have the votes you work to get them.

Speaking out (which is easy and costs nothing) can help do that. If Obama was being the advocate he said he'd be he'd be speaking out FOR it, not playing it safe, not biding his time, not defending DOMA, etc.

Sometimes words alone make a big impact, as we saw with countless Obama speeches both during the campaign, and since he's been president. Silence also can have a big impact. MLK never had a chance to put any policy decision up for a vote, he didn't wait until there would be enough votes for civil rights to start speaking out forcefully in favor of them. If you change gay rights to African American rights would Obama's near silence still be acceptable in the context of "not having the votes"? I honestly doubt many people would have the balls/craziness to make the argument that silence would have been accepted in that case...so why is it ok in this case? Both are/were a question of equal rights. Both causes can be/were advanced through fierce advocacy, the kind Obama said he would provide.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. Both these positions are true

I've worked to get votes too. Usually not by shouting down the department hallway, though. I think a closer look at the way Lyndon Johnson worked voters on the Civil Rights Act is precisely the sort of history we could use here. He was the President, by the way, not MLK. :-)

The activists are doing what the activists should do, and I'm glad for that. It's a part of the process.

[Forkboy]

21. MLK brought the issue to the forefront.

That was all I meant there, and Obama could do much the same for gay rights with the bully pulpit he has. He's choosing not to, so far at least.

The activists are doing what the activists should do, and I'm glad for that. It's a part of the process.

I'm glad to see someone here say that. I agree fully, and see all of us as playing a role in the process in our own way. :toast:

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. MLK was an activist, not the President

As I see it, the activists are doing precisely what they should be doing: raising holy hell on this board and across the information scape to FORCE the politicians to ACT. That's what MLK did. He was not the president. What Lyndon Johnson did, and had to do, to corral the votes was far different. Now, I admit that something about this argument could be read as the usual "go slow" argument that activists always get when they try to rightfully claim civil rights, as the activists on this board are doing. It's not. My point is simple: Obama might be more effective on this if he is actually working to get votes, and you don't always get votes as a politician by acting like an activist. Yes, yes, yes: this reeks of "secret plan and you can't possibly know what he's really doing" and all those truly shitty defenses. But you know as well as I do that when you're counting votes and working to get votes, a lot happens behind closed doors, so it's part of what goes on. Whether it is happening here, we can't know. Should Obama make more public statements? Of course. Does the fact that he hasn't bother me? No, not so much. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

But I will reaffirm that I'm proud of all the activists here for pushing this issue and making people see it for an issue, even if I disagree with them from time to time, and even if I see some of their attacks as counterproductive and politically dangerous. I don't think Obama should do anything by executive order, but that's just me. I do see Obama at least trying to disinvest the power accumulated by the executive, and that's good. Does it hurt in this case. Sure.

[FedUp_Queer]

14. BINGO!!!!

He could do this with an executive order. Sorry, but Mr. Fierce Advocate was the same one who said he was for repealing DADT and DOMA. Yet...we see a disgusting defense of it in a brief his justice department just filed. He could have put a moratorium on DADT's implementation...nope, not there either (in fact, his justice department argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that they should uphold it). With "Fierce Advocates" like that...

[LostinVA]

8. Take your discount cafeteria meal and get over it

Did you wnat a pony?

Yes, :sarcasm:

I know dsc knows it, but just for the other folks.

[scheming daemons]

9. miniature pony, I guess?

Hopefully bigger ponies coming down the road....

[FedUp_Queer]

15. Maybe all of us LGBT Folks

Are a little pissed after having a simple majority take away our brothers and sisters civil rights in California without Mr. Fierce Advocate without saying so much as a "Shame on you California." Supposed they would have voted take away the right to marry "interracially." I guess just a "state's rights" issue.