I am not even the slightest bit surprised to learn from David Axelrod that candidate Barack Obama dissembled about his reluctance to acknowledge same-sex marriages. I suppose some people will hold this against him not because they agree or disagree with his stated positions, but because they are disappointed that he lied to them about where he stood. I don’t hold it against him at all.
He had the correct position way before most people did, going back to the mid-1990’s.
As a state senate candidate in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire saying “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But 12 years later as a candidate for president, Obama told Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church that marriage could only extend to heterosexual couples. “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” Obama said at the time. “Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
He listened to his political people who told him that he was too forward on his skis on the issue, and so he waited until the time was right. In general, I want politicians to be honest and forthright in their positions, but I also want candidates who know what the hell they are doing and can get the job done with the least political cost and risk.
Looking back, nothing was lost because the president took his time. In the end, Obama’s presidency is going to be remembered as the watershed moment for gay rights and gay marriage, and it sounds like the Supreme Court is going to ratify the president’s judgment soon and remove this from the arena of controversy.
How can I be so petty as to nitpick that performance and that result?
Agree 100%
Because it’s not pettiness at all?
The man specifically and deliberately promoted bigotry against American citizens and a false and harmful interpretation of religion (gee whiz, good thing he’s never condemned such politicization of faith and intolerance in other contexts before, or at least not in the last four days…) for his own personal benefit.
He lied before the world that some people are inherently worth less in the eyes of god and should be outcasts. He may have had reasonable intentions, many other similar liars did. And many more liars will on other topics for years to come.
Integrity isn’t something that only matters when it’s easy. And beating up on the weak is never noble, even when “it all works out in the end.”
You don’t need religion to ride a high horse, I guess.
I’ll ride this one, sure.
You can either explain to me why (1) that quote from 08 isn’t weaponizing religion to condone hate or (2) if we agree that it is, why are such acts not by their own merits pretty scummy things to do? It was the fashion of the times, and times do change (and he helped change them), but bigotry should be considered wrong no matter when it happens.
If the President were to start agreeing with Paul Ryan about the “culture of poverty and dependence plaguing our inner cities” in an effort to get legislation passed in the time he has left, would you just be chill about it?
Quote as cherry-picked by The Guardian, went on in the original to say
Which sounds a lot less like bigotry or harmful interpretation of scripture, since he’s relaxed about other interpreting it differently. He wasn’t weaponizing religion but defanging it, very slowly and delicately, trying not to shock anybody.
I personally never had any doubt where he stood, and neither did the bigots, for that matter. He certainly never persuaded anybody to reject marriage equality through his words to Pastor Warren. No minds were changed except in the other direction, as he publicly “evolved”, or as the Committee of the Presidency evolved to where the man Barack was years earlier.
And I’m delighted Ax has clarified that for us.
You know, somehow saying he is FOR civil unions and AGAINST Gay Marriage just isn’t at the same level of disaster as say ….
PRESIDENT JOHN McCAIN and VICE-PRESIDENT CARIBOU BARBIE
Presidents only have power over civil unions and all the legal folderol and rights that surround the civil status of being “married”.
The First Amendment, in principle, prohibits the federal government (or states) from telling religious institutions what they should do.
What Alabama was ordered to do was civil unions. Some congregations in Alabama took the opportunity to extend marriage equality voluntarily to a religious ceremony.
Yes, it helps to keep disasters in perspective.
Because it was a lie. It was even a lie clearly at the time. I’m not going to let someone get away with doing something wrong even if it was the best course of action.
Yeah, I don’t see how this can be considered a big deal. It reminds me of an online discussion where a serviceman said that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the right idea for the military at the time. It gave service members time to get used to the idea of gays in the military, so when gays were allowed to serve openly it wasn’t such a big deal anymore.
In practice, according to those who were impacted by DADT, it made them more vulnerable than they had been before DADT.
But somehow I don’t think Bill had in mind how he could screw over gays even more by agreeing to DADT. Unintended consequence of a well-intended forced compromise position.
Iirc, it was CJCS Colin Powell and Sen Sam Nun who pushed hard against gays being allowed to openly serve, and who insisted on the DADT alternative as the limit to their tolerance. Most of Congress also, iirc, was prepared in 1993 to override any presidential directive on openly serving.
I gave Bill some slack back then, once I knew the background context. I’m similarly inclined today w/Obama. I mean, it was hard to believe O the pol, who had once formally signed on to gay marriage, somehow when he was about to run for president suddenly being against it. Was it some persuasive sermon by the Rev Wright or that knucklehead preacher at Saddleback College? C’mon, this one was easy to figure out. He needed to readjust his position along the lines of what Abe Lincoln (or someone) supposedly once said, that political leaders do need to be out in front of the people — just not too far in front.
Bill made a big promise to the gay community in 2002. Then he compromised once in office. In real time that compromise was accepted by gays and liberals. However, those in power that agree to a compromise also have a duty to monitor the progress of a compromise and make sure that not only does it not increase harm, but it also reduces harm. Team Clinton failed to monitor and/or demand adjustment as soon as the facts indicated that DADT increased harm.
Obama on same-sex marriage did the wink-wink-nod-nod to the left in 2008. But unlike liberals that failed to recognize Reagan etal. using racist dog whistles, “conservatives” had no trouble reading Obama’s winks. Thus, Obama publicly doubled down on being opposed to same-sex marriage once elected. Sat back at let the courts lead on it. Until a majority supported or no longer cared about it. (Recall that same-sex marriage was legalized in MA and IO years before Obama ran for POTUS.)
I wouldn’t disagree that Bill over promised but that goes w the territory of being a pol seeking office. At the same time the gay activists were probably a tad naive and unrealistic in expecting one person, even the president, to be able to effectuate such change on his own and w/o a major backlash, as occurred.
Apart from some campaign over promising, I think he did about as well as could be expected in the context of the times. Obama, ditto.
I’ll give Obama far more credit than Clinton. Obama didn’t promise anything and didn’t backslide from the position he espoused in 2008. Clinton’s DADT compromise/backslide could be overlooked or rationalized if he hadn’t followed that up with DOMA and as I already said, not have ignored the actual negative outcome of DADT in the military.
In politics, it’s the results that matter. Since becoming President, Obama has been very supportive of the LGBT community and the results are coming in almost daily. No Democratic politician is going to be 100% candid during a campaign. He/she probably wouldn’t win since these statements would be distorted by the right-wing media complex. It’s the political world we live in.
I’m curious as to why Axelrod thought now was a good time to bring this out. A message that other interest groups need to get out there and fight for policy? A message that Obama has been willing to take abuse from a key constituency while he is working the politics? A message to the Supreme Court that the country now is for marriage equality and the tossing it back to the states will turn this issue into another 40 years of controversy?
Principles collide and require decisions between right and right and wrong and wrong. That’s something that the moral purists never get. And only in the fulness of history is a full judgement possible.
With this, in principle almost all of the identity politics issues are settled with the public–no matter how much conservatives want to turn the clock back on the specific ones of their own bigotry. Is that the message?
Politics, even politics of compromise, is convenient lies. Diplomacy, one diplomat said, was the art of lying for your country. Those lies can upset the process of arriving at justice or they can move the process in the direction of justice. What we see in this tale is that Obama used the rhetoric of the opposition to gain power. It is only six years down the road that we see the consequences of that rhetoric. I doubt if many people at Saddleback Church voted for Obama anyway, speech or no speech.
For this moment, this lie seems much less egregious than W promising an “humble foreign policy”. And much less damaging than some of the other lies that President Obama likely has told us.
Onlookers often forget that we are dealing with human beings and substantially contingent powers with any head of state. A head of state depends on someone following his instructions. Until that happens he has to not allow his failure to deliver to become a distraction. Fortunately, some judges still understand the Constitution when it comes to an issue like this one.
And one never knows when a politician is feinting and when he has fundamentally been persuaded of something different and when he is just being expedient. That ambiguity is one of the arts of politics.
I’m reminded of Tommy Lee Jones’ depiction of Thaddeus Stevens in the debate over the 13th Amendment. My guess is in the debate over the 14th, he lied about supporting suffrage, too.
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. “
Abraham Lincoln, liar.
Well, not much difficulty for me to see Obama recognized he got out too far too soon, as a state senator for a narrow constituency who was now looking at appealing to a much broader group of less liberal voters. And he never quite offered a remotely persuasive reason why he changed his position, other than some vague reference to God and a “sacred union.”
So, yes, much less damaging than say presidential lies about FP, of the type like the Gulf of Tonkin or wmd’s in Iraq, which lead to unnecessary wars.
And because it’s frank truth-telling, probably much needed truth-telling in the political realm, I’m also inclined to applaud Axelrod for revealing it.
The success of the Marriage Equality movement is a great example of the benefits of changing people’s minds before you change the law. I’m hopeful something similar comes about with marijuana decriminalization.
While I get tired of Ron Fournier’s “leadership” schtick, I do think Obama had a significant impact on the acceptance of marriage equality among African Americans. He waited until it was becoming a majority position and then pushed it over the top with African Americans – who had been very much opposed as a group.
Rarely has a civil rights movement enjoyed so much success so quickly, but it will never be fast enough for everyone.
The success of the Marriage Equality movement is a great example of the benefits of changing people’s minds before you change the law.
Except that’s not a correct historical reading. Other than the smattering of domestic partner provisions by a few municipalities and the CA Assembly bill 26 of 1999, it was the courts that changed the law and before a majority of the people’s minds were changed.
Meanwhile, the mere thought of same-sex marriage (or even civil unions) resulted in political and religious opposition from the moment it was raised in 1970. (Probably played a role in the failure of the ERA to become ratified.) For the next forty years, local, state, federal laws were passed to deny same sex couples equal rights. Bigots can always move faster in passing discriminatory legislation than the courts can act.
If I were gay, I’d get a little pissed about people saying how fast and easy my civili rights movement succeeded. It’s been a rough thousand years, after all.
Barack Obama did more for gays and lesbians than any other President in American History…and, he got it put into LAW…so, that it wouldn’t be subject to the whim of whomever was in the Oval Office.
He showed you what he really thought when he got into office.
But, I guess some still agree with the Award given by the HRC to Bill Clinton instead of Barack Obama.
That shyt never made sense to me.
It was akin to,
After the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act..
The NAACP deciding to give the Springarn Medal..
Not to Lyndon Baines Johnson…
But, to Strom Thurmond…
yeah, it made about that much sense.