My Vote for Nader, Vindicated
Posted by politicizer on June 16, 2009
Noah Baron, Staff Writer
According to AMERICAblog, Barack Obama’s legal team — likely on instructions from the White House — filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge to the “Defense” of “Marriage” Act (DOMA). The full-length, fifty-four page assault on the Constitution and queer constituents can be found here. Among some of the claims the team makes are:
* Homosexuality is comparable to incest and pedophilia. Maybe if the Obama administration lawyers had a basic understanding of reality, they might comprehend that since children aren’t able to consent (unlike adults, the persons in question in same-sex marriage) the comparison to homosexuality is not a very good one. They might also understand the fact that incest has been scientifically linked to genetic problems in offspring, whereas homosexuality…not so much.
* DOMA is fine because it saves the federal government money. (Funny, I don’t recall that being a concern of the Obama administration.) Besides, aren’t our rights priceless? Or something? Maybe? This nonsense goes on and on; I encourage every person who voted for Obama to read this in full and then seriously reconsider voting for him again. You can’t write this off as simply him doing “his best” for gay people in today’s political climate: this was a relatively minor proceeding (i.e. whether the case would be able to go to court or not) and Obama would have been perfectly capable of distancing himself from the actions of his legal team. Instead, he chose to aggressively seek out and destroy the rights of same-sex couples. I was happy to see that a number of gay-rights groups, including the ACLU, GLAD, Lambda Legal, and HRC, among others, wrote a letter to the Obama administration complaining about his desertion of gay Americans. This shouldn’t be shocking to anyone who even vaguely recalls the Clinton administration. In fact, the Democratic Party has a strong tradition of trying to double-cross gay people. To me, the recent actions of the Obama administration, combined with his announced refusal to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for a long time, are merely a vindication of my belief that an Obama White House wouldn’t mean anything for gay rights.
Barack Obama should be absolutely ashamed of himself.
This has been cross-posted on The Match (http://www.thematch.wordpress.com) and The Commentariat (http://commentariat.columbiaspectator.com)
Christopher Conway said
It’s an immense disappointment now (as are many of Obama’s broken promises), but at least he made no pretenses during the election that his views on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights were any different from John McCain’s. I had hoped that Obama would represent an era of actual change, but his actions over the course of his term so far confirm that he’s a politician, not a messiah.
Green Ferret said
The Green Party of the United States supports full equality for all. If you’re sick of politicians taking your vote for granted, get active with a party that shares your values. You can find out more at gp.org