Subscribe to Breaking NewsEmma Ruby-Sachs: Why we should be critical of Obama
Thanks for checking out my very first post on 365gay.com. I’m new to the website, to blogging in general, but not to politics, or the very satisfying game of pointing out just how enraging the American landscape can be, especially if you’re gay.
I’ve spent the last three years in law school and before that I was writing and working with a law firm (there’s a theme here). I’m really excited about spending some time talking about legal issues facing the gay and lesbian community.
But since the election is in full swing and we have a debate tomorrow, I think a little talk about Obama is appropriate.
I was helping a friend of mine move out of Hyde Park this past weekend and found myself around the corner from Barack Obama’s house. As we pulled over by the side of the road a secret service agent immediately arrived to investigate. We chatted (what with us being a couple of non-threatening girls in a tiny car) and as we left, I asked the agent to take good care of the Obama family. I was gushing, truly, blushing and everything.
The thing is, I’m a little in love with Obama.
I’m not completely blinded of course. Many of his policies, economic and social, frustrate me (I’m always hoping the Democratic party will dump the privatization of essential services), but what I really should be mad about is his utter refusal to step up and support gay marriage.
Many say it’s political suicide) to support marriage for gays and lesbians (that’s almost a bit of street cred for all of us – we are that risky) and the last thing I want is an aging Republican in office, but do I really have to adore the man that thinks I’m not quite as good as him and his wife?
So today, despite my crush, I’ve decided that I will be mad at Obama for not standing up for full rights for gays and lesbians.
Sure, his thirty second sound bite on Ellen sounded very progressive and Biden said last week that he supports my right to visit my partner in the hospital. Biden, especially, emphatically purported granting marital rights to gays and lesbians who choose to commit. Still, the word marriage will be reserved for heterosexuals.
Why the anger? Because our government is telling us that we are not like them. They are hoping to write that distinction into law. And even though in the near future same sex unions and marriage may grant the same rights, at any point, changes can be made that put same sex couples at a disadvantage all over again.
So say Obama does get elected? Is everyone going to use the same justifications and reasoning when an Obama administration does nothing to further gay rights?
I can hear everyone saying 4 years from now how Obama had no choice but to back away from DADT. I can hear people rationalize that Obama was forced to make no moves on Defense of Marriage as it’s all a system of steps. And when he appoints judges to the Supreme Court that feel that Marriage is between a man and a woman (as he feels himself) you really will have no one to blame but yourselves.
I feel sorry for us all, but have faith that we will be able to overcome whichever poor excuse for an administration that is elected.
To the 90+% percent of registered voters – ours is a fringe issue. There is more at stake in this election than our civil rights. Can you believe that there are still people out there who claim to be undecided? To them it’s all about “personality” – the candidates might as well be movie stars. then you’ve got those Hillary supporters who still they’s rather vote for McCain than Obama. These morons are delusional. They claim they are voting based on the issues, but how can that be? Hillary and Barak agree on 95% of the issues – while she and McCain agree on only 10%. If it isn’t his race, what could it be?
Emma Ruby-Sachs, politicians are the products of the era and the sociaty they grew up in. And our country is still evolving, not quite as ready for gay marriage as Canada and some other countries might be.
Kucinich was the only candidate for US president to support gay marriage.
Obama is not for gay marriage, since we lost Kucinich, this who we may have to live with.
But Obama is still light-years ahead of McCain on several gay issues. HRC has a good long list of positions on gay issues of both candidates. The difference between Obama and McCain is like night and day on gay issues. McCain as we know supports practically none of the biggest gay issues, oBamas supports practically all of them on the list of pro and con positions. Neither support gay marriage. Obama’s VP BIden believes in the rightness of gay rights.
To me Obama is not perfect and mot my preferred choioc, but now for me it is obviuus that I will wote for him even more since he has in Joe Biden someone who has had long US senatorial experience and expertise in foreign policy and in defense. I belive that Joe Biden can back up Obama with his lengthy experience and competence.
We can not trust our ecomomy to 4 more years of bungling under a Bush-like leadership. I hear in my men’s group that IRAs, homes and properties, funds, etc. have lost value. We have seen a cry for bailout of major mortgage and financial institutions, banks fearful of doing new loans, credit drying up, banks not wanting to lend to even other banks, loans for construction projects not available, etc
This country is deep financial doo-doo and I’d think right now gay marriage might just have to take a back seat in our list of priorities and that we need to put the econmoic recovery of USA first. We Americans are an impatient people wanting everything right now whether practical or possible or not.
If this country plunges into another depression like it did under a conservatvive administration, we the common people may loose everything but the shirt (maybe even that too) off our backs. Everything could fail in rapid succession and we one day could be fearing for our personal survival, could be starving and homeless, living under bridges and eating out of garbage cans and you, Emma Ruby-Sachs are worried about Obama not in favor of gay marriage??
Gay marriage is not a wise thing for Obama to support UNTIL OUR ECONOMY IS RECOVERING, AMERICANS ARE LESS WORRIED ABOUT THEIR JOBS, THEIR FOOD ON THEIR TABLES AND THEIR ROOFS OVER THEIR HEADS.
Americans are very worried about that and gay marriage is not at the top of their list right now, The economy and whether thay have still have a job tomorrow has priority over all else at this moment. When people here are feeling more secure in their future after economy comes back and everyone is in less of a financial and job survival mode, then we will have the luxury of worrying whether politicann supports gay marriage.
Right now, I and many other Americans are nervous about economy, financial institutions and financial survival, whether our currency and our properties will be (like in Zimbabwe) totally worthless with inflation sky-high like you have never imagined in your wildest dreams and with the average citizen needing buckets of worthless currency to buy a loaf of bread.
I, a gay marriage supporter never dreamed I’d be saying this, but whether a candidate supports gay marriage is right now far less of a worry than who has the hopefully the right medicince to cure our sick economy.
How can we expect something more from a politician that we do not get from our own community? We are sometimes our own worst enemy.
There are gays in California telling people to vote yes on Prop 8 just because they do not want marriage.
In a perfect world we could have a candidate that supports equal rights for all and could win the presidency. To make that happen we need to get every member of the GLBT out of the closets an involved in one way or another in the electoral process even if that is just voting!
So come on get out there and VOTE Obama because if McSame gets into office the world will be in major hurt! That is everyone not just our community.
Obama is the most pro-gay candidate in history. He’s not perfect but he’s so superior to the alternative. I believe that we will get marriage rights during his administration. He’s come out against Prop 8 here in California and that’s more than any other previous Democratic candidate for president has ever done. Kerry supported a constitutional amendment in his home state and in Missouri to ban same sex marriage.
365 gay is dropping the ball and this site is becoming no more that a hipped blog and not a news site.
I would rather have lets articles as long as it was news not bias rhetoric.
I’ve stated before that gay marriage is hardly the most pressing issues we face. Our whole economy is in jeopardy. When all is as should be with our world, then lets put our effort into all else. We need to make sure that no repubs get into office this time. Vote for Obama it’s our best bet as gay people. Thanks for reading and Peace….
This is kind of ridiculous. While I certainly understand that we should be critical, we can’t expect to win the big battle overnight. There’s so much more at stake. I don’t begrudge those voting for, say, McKinney with this in mind, but consider what state you’re in first. Ultimately, McCain is much worse for the GLBTQ community.
Sorry, you have conflated the well being of LGBT people with the effort for legal marriage. They are not the same. Many LGBT people would gain a whole lot more from the middle and working class tax cuts proposed by Obama than they would from some promise from Obama to support same-sex marriage, something that the U.S. president cannot make happen anyway. Many of us within the LGBT communities could care less about this obsessive focus on marriage to the exclusion of far more important matters including the adoption of ENDA, maintaining funding for HIV treatment and prevention, and obtaining universal health care. We are not about to let a greedy bunch of wanna-be wedding brides confuse us about what really matters in presidential politics.
I think Obama’s more of a hold your nose and vote for Jacques Chirac (because the other candidate is Jean-Marie Le Pen) sort of deal. I, for one, was never enthralled with the Vegas style “Barack Obama Superstar” song and dance routine.
My vote for him is purely strategic. And after eight years of incompetence, national humiliation, and economic ruin, I don’t think the tactics are that difficult to discern here. If you’re still “undecided” after Iraq, Katrina, No Child Left Behind, Alberto Gonzales, Scooter Libby, Wiretapping, Torture, and The Ownership Society — then you just might be a Republican.
Emma, I tried responding a couple of times, but the computer gremlins erased my writings twice as I was nearing the end. Now, hours later, I can read what others wrote and am glad that it disappeared. People are being very critical (if not just plain rude) and I don’t want to hop onto this bandwagon.
First off let me begin by saying that I agree with you. I’m an Obama campaign intern but that doesnt stop me from being angry.I would love to be wooed by his charm and his message of hope. Unfortunately, that message doesn’t apply to us the way it does the rest of his audience. Obama’s stance on the most importance domestic issue, that of civil rights, is cowardly and reprehensible. We deserve better.
Many say that his opinions on gay marriage doesn’t matter, that (as someone said below), far more gay and lesbians will be helped by his economic policies than could ever be helped by his full support of glbt equal rights.
So for how long are we going to continue to placidly accept being treated as second class citizens? Women and racial minorities never got the vote sitting back and allowing the majority continued dominance and oppression.
You can’t cut corners with the constitution. We are entitled equality under the basic endowments of our humanity, and the glbt community needs to stop settling for less.
Sure, vote Obama into the White House. What are we supposed to do? Vote a third party candidate who by the virtues of our political system has no chance of being elected? End up with McCain? No.
Obviously your vote can go no other way. But email him. call him. Wait until he’s in the White House and then we might have a chance.
Yeah, let’s take those two steps back because we don’t only want to take one step forward. Varuca Salt also kicked up a fuss because she couldn’t get what she wanted when she wanted it.
Look what happened to her.
Sorry, missy, things take time. Change happens in small steps, not massive land shifts.
For all my gay friends out there, a political lesson I have learned since realizing what a monstrosity got elected to the White House and Congress in 2000.
I wish Obama could simply stand up and say that he would push a constitutional amendment outlawing any discrimination against gay people, period. A new civil rights bill.
But the truth is he needs some of the semi-redneck votes to win. And he may well get them, as these people find themselves at the bottom of an ever deeper economic hole.
It took 100 years after the civil war to begin to end slavery’s aftermath, segregation, crimes whose ramifications still hurt our society.
And if you get McBush and Palin, the religious freak who got herself dewitched by some minister – the video has been on TV and youtube, you will have the worst of the Taliban Christian Fascists running this country for many more years. If you get Obama, who obviously knows what it is like to be discriminated against, the situation will be a 1000 times better. The problem is a generational problem. In much of the country, as gay people come out of the diabolical churches terrorism closet, the younger generation both accepts their gay friends, and ignores the right wing churches. Good for them, and good for LGBT people.
Politics is always compromise. You have a choice- a continuing disaster economically, war wise, and politically that corrupts the very basis of our national soul – the republican party of Bush, McCain, Palin and their religious freaks, or a party that has almost always looked out for the average citizen vs the wall street and religious freaks.
So recognize that some of the Anti- Obama stuff here is simply more dirty tricks by republicans, attempting to piss you off to suppress the gay vote. Just another dirty trick, from the republican party that is corrupted through and through. To H… with them.
Might it have been smarter for newsom in sf to have waited until after the last election rather than make gay marriage The values issue to polarize the vote? I say get straight what your goals are, delay a few battles until you get the representation you think will most support them. Politics requires compromise if you want to succeed some of the time. Why vote for someone like Nader or whoever, though we love love his ideals, knowing it only means a vote for what we really don’t want. Why call the dems and repubs tweedly de and dumb when it really does make a difference? Look at Obama’s and McCain’s records on GLBT support for past bills. It’s obvious which side each is on. When McCain tells you the civil rights fight of the times is integration in schools you’ve got to wonder what planet he’s on (though it is an important issure). Don’t shoot ourselves in the foot because we can’t have it all our own way right now. We’re moving so strong on so many fronts our opponents’ heads are spinning. Didn’t Massachussets once burn witches?