We at USDemocrazy are glad for the rights we have, since without them, we wouldn’t be able to help you digest all this ridiculous stuff that keeps happening in the world.
It turns out, we’re not the only ones who like having rights in America. The gay community appreciates rights too!
President Obama has taken heat recently by many people for many things. One unhappy group (thus far) has been a constituency that greatly supports him: gay Americans. They are unhappy because he has been slow to fulfill campaign promises to address gay rights issues. (Of course, he has been a little busy of late…)
On Wednesday President Obama made his first nod in their direction. He signed a bill extending some rights to homosexual federal employees and their partners. This bill, according to the Washington Post,
grants employees’ same-sex partners access to a government insurance program that pays for long-term conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease. They also would be allowed to take sick leave to care for a sick partner or non-biological child.
Mr. Obama noted at the signing ceremony,
“Many of our government’s hard-working and dedicated, patriotic public servants have long been denied basic rights that their colleagues enjoy, for one simple reason: The people they love are of the same sex.”
Sure, this is progress, but it is nothing close to what gay rights activists are going for.
John Aravosis wrote for Salon that the gay community is pretty fed up with President Obama, specifically for acting as a protector of equality during the campaign, but doing little since then. He writes,
And while gay and lesbian Americans were initially willing to cut our new president some slack, the president’s now-clear reticence to follow through on even one of his many campaign promises to the gay community has put the Democratic Party on the precipice of an ugly and very public divorce with this once-solid constituency.
And then, there’s this: http://www.obamasplanforgayrights.com/
The White House resents all of this negative representation of the Obama stance on gay rights.
Marc Ambinder points out for The Atlantic, Obama is simply prioritizing right now. Like we said… the guy has been a little bit busy of late.
Ambinder suggests what gays want from Obama isn’t “long-term health care:”
They want Obama to expend his political capital to get super-majorities in the Senate for legislation getting rid of the ban on gays in the military and ending discrimination against gays in the workplace.
And so, it is up to all of us to decide: is Obama being overly cautious with this controversial cultural issue? Or is he just not as big supporter of gay rights as advertised?
(Just an aside… It’s worth noting that this article in the New York Times points out that people becoming less enchanted with Obama… Gay rights activists included…)
And Obama thought things were tough before…
[...] The question is: How the heck are we going to fix for America’s sputtering economy? (as if US Democrazy did not have enough to write about with Iran’s election and gay rights). [...]
[...] Obama is controversial on gay rights. He can do neither all good nor all bad. [...]