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Loading ...Gay leadership guarded after State of Union speech
Gay leaders offered only a lukewarm reception Wednesday night for President Obama’s statement in his State of the Union address that he would work for the repeal of the military’s discriminatory policy against gays.
The statement came near the end of his address.“This year,” he said, “I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
Even before the president finished the sentence, a cheer broke out from somewhere in the chamber and some members of Congress rose to applaud. Television cameras flashed on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were sitting with considerable stoicism, as they did throughout the speech, though Defense Secretary Robert Gates was standing and applauding.
The reaction of gay leaders fell somewhere in-between.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network issued a statement applauding the president’s remarks, calling for repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“We very much need a sense of urgency to get this done in 2010,” said the group. “We call on the President to repeal the archaic 1993 law in his defense budget currently now being drafted, that is probably the only and best moving bill where DADT can be killed this year. “ The group also said that both “more attention and leadership” are needed to win repeal.”
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese posted a statement saying the president sent “a clear message” against the policy. He added - as did Servicemembers Legal – that the issue “will required continued leadership” from President Obama and Congressional allies.
But other reaction was guarded.
Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, issued a statement saying “We have heard promises before about ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” While Cathcart said Lambda was happy to hear President Obama’s remark, he added that “the time has finally come to fulfill that promise.”
Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said “the time for broad statements is over.”
“He must provide a concrete blueprint for his leadership and action moving forward — this includes his willingness to stop the discharges happening on his watch until Congress can fulfill its responsibility to overturn the law.”
“We wish we had heard him speak of concrete steps tonight,” said Carey.
Richard Socarides, a longtime Democratic activist who worked in the White House of President Clinton, said he found the lack of a game plan and timetable on the issue to be “extremely troubling.”
Charles Moran, a spokesperson for Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay political group, was much more harsh.
“President Obama is more concerned about protecting the rights of terrorists,” said Moran, “than he is about the rights of gay and lesbian Americans who are putting their lives on the line every day fighting to preserve peace and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and operate small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy.”
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked Valerie Jarrett, a senior policy advisor to the president, when and how the president planned to follow through on his promise regarding Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell. Jarrett said the president would “begin the process right away” and that he was “very clearly” committed to the promise. Jarrett said she was also “very heartened” by the applause in the chamber in reaction to the president’s statement of commitment.
The president’s statement was no surprise. News of his intention to express support for repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” filtered to news media from Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin said he heard of the plan from “the Pentagon.”
In his speech, President Obama made note of the nation’s “incredible diversity” and on the Constitution’s “notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; that if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else.”
He said his administration is prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination and noted, “We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate.”
That statement referred to the law long sought by national gay political groups to enable the federal government to help fund prevention of and prosecution for crimes that target victims for sexual orientation or gender identity, among other things. The president signed that law in October.
There was quiet inclusion of gay people in another way during Wednesday night’s event. A gay businessman from Indiana was seated in the balcony with First Lady Michelle Obama as one of her guests.
According to the the Indianapolis Star, Trevor Yager was one of 23 citizens invited by the White House to sit with the First Lady during the speech. He told the paper the White House invited him at the suggestion of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. A White House press release that went out identifying the guests did not identify Yager as gay.
Yager, a native of Michigan, operates a small advertising firm in Indianapolis that he says has benefited from President Obama’s stimulus legislation. His own company, Trendy Minds, has added seven employees in the past year and taken on four new accounts, according to the Star.
The company’s website indicates it does “branding consultation” for Penguin Group’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide series and work for NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick’s website.
Republican reaction
The Republican response to the Democratic president’s State of the Union came from Virginia’s new governor Bob McConnell.
Rather than the folksy, at home delivery of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – which did not play well last year – McDonnell staged his speech in the State House of Virginia, with an enthusiastically applauding chamber, creating a sort of miniature State of the Union look.
Standing behind McDonnell, visible to the camera trained on his podium, was one black woman, one Asian man, one white woman, and one white, male service member in uniform.
Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain issued a statement following President Obama’s speech reacting specifically to the call for repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, calling it a “mistake.”
“This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years,” said McCain’s statement, “and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels. … At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.”
This is not the first time a president has expressed support for a gay civil rights issue during a State of the Union. Democratic President Bill Clinton called for support of hate crimes legislation during his 1999 address.
“Discrimination or violence because of race or religion, ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation is wrong and it ought to be illegal,” said Clinton during the address. “Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act the law of the land.”
The hate crimes legislation passed 10 years later.
Full text of the State of the Union address here.
© 2010 by Keen News Service. All rights reserved.
And dumbass Joe Solomenese of HRC thinks this is “news breaking”? Just another one of those throw the dog a bone to keep him quiet for now. Not good enough.
I know I risk sounding like one of those tea baggers who keep writing letters to our local paper saying Obama is a liar…but he is.
For him to have said what he did about our constitution, diversity and shared values, that everyone deserves equal treatment as long as they hold our values, is a complete lie.
No man that had his employees write the DOMA briefs can possible believe what he said.
No man that continues to allow his employees to discharge gay soldiers can possibly believe what he said.
A truthful Obama would have announced, long before last night, that the discharges have stopped AND that at least they would start enforcing the Don’t Ask part. I keep hearing about people being reported and then investigated. How is that Don’t Ask?
Lastly, a man that says repeatedly and without shame that we are second class and do not deserve marriage is a liar when he utters that statement about diversity.
Liar. Time for our President to get some backbone and be honest. At least Bush/Cheney said they hated us!
Overwhelming support when Obama was elected.The same voters who put him into office now need to give him the senators and congressman. It’s all a package deal. And get the older ones out. They stay in power and remain until they run out of oxygen or the tire goes flat on their scooter. This is a new dawn in America. I feel the president is doing okay with who he has to face everyday.You’ll love his replacement.
What a truly un-American and disgusting statement by McCain, saying that it was a success to throw our gay veterans on the street after years of training and service.
Soldiers possibly have died because their fellow-soldiers were yanked out of the service because they gay. Straight fellow-soldiers have said they don’t like the senseless loss of their team members. McCain should ask a dead soldiers whether they think the policy is a success. Moron. Let McCain tell them that they had to die because there was no backup, or one less person on their team, or no translation, or no teacher to train other soldiers. One guy had eighteen years of flight experience. Gone.
McCain has totally disgraced his own status as a soldier making those comments. You think he would want to honor veterans. But no, he would rather end his tenure in the senate in disgrace. They should have kept him locked up in that cage in Vietnam, maybe it would have saved some lives, and the moral integrity of the nation.
i, myself, have hope for what President Obama has said. i believe he really does want to help our community. he took the first step and placed the lgbt community under the hate crime umbrella. he’s working on the second step, allowing gays to serve openly in the military. the third step would be to allow us to have the same legal rights as couples.
although i do believe we deserve the same legal rights as same sex couples do, if they dont want to call it marrige i dont care. as long as we can share benefits, and share all of the same legal rights heterosexual couples have i dont care if they call it unions, commitment papers, or yaba daba doo… as long as we have the same rights they can call it whatever they want, because they can’t stop me from putting the words “wedding” and “marriage” on my invitations to the ceremony.
yes the republicans are honest when they say they hate us, but i would rather have someone who is trying to help us and give our community rights, then someone who would never even consider it. i would rather it take Obama 2 whole terms to give us all of our rights then have a republican as our president and not even have hope for those rights.
also you have to look at what hes done in his first year… he actually did SOMETHING unlike most presidents who take the first 3 years to do next to nothing then the last year they start to try to deliver on their promises.
again i say atleast he’s trying. but thats just my opinion.
Last nights speech was interesting and made for a fun drinking game.
Sitting applause = beer
Standing applause = shot
I still have hope, but if he really wanted to make a change, he would have addressed the court case in San Francisco and urged support for us.
Question,, can’t he repeal the DADT policy with a presidental directive??? He says he’l work with the military, but did anyone notice how NOT HAPPY they were about it?? He may offer to work with, but they won’t.
It’s the “worthy of equal treatment as long as they hold our values” part of his speech that concerns me. Sounds like Washington weaselspeak for “don’t worry, I’m not giving the gay sinners squat.”
FORGET what he says… HERE is what he actually DID in 2009.
“”Congress was actually working on repealing the law. There were two separate attempts, by Rep. Alcee Hastings, and by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, to legislatively put a moratorium on investigations and discharges. Who pressured them to withdraw those Defense Authorization Bill amendments? The White House.
Senator Carl Levin promised hearings in October, which got pushed to November, which got pushed to January, and which just this past week, got pushed to some indefinite time in the future at the insistence of whom? The White House.
Pentagon officials including Army Secretary John McHugh and CJCS ADM Mike Mullen insist that they’re not ready for repeal, but segregation is ok. Know where that gets reported to? The White House.
For all Obamabots keep harping on how it’s Congress’ responsibility, they sure do seem to conveniently ignore how the Executive keeps making sure Congress doesn’t actually do anything to stop this horror.”"
That DADT thing in the speech was just a throwaway line put in there to divert attention from the attacks the Obama administration is making on LGBT people.
If it was real he would have said he’s treating it like all the other laws he doesn’t like, and he’s going to issue executive orders to stop funding the findings of “telling”, increase funding for findings of “asking”, and put a moratorium on all discharges under DADT. Something this important to national security and to equality should come with concrete actions described in the speech, including calling on Congress to make things right with those soldiers discharged solely for status, since DADT was enacted.
Mr.and Mrs. Obama….NO MORE “we can do it”….it must now be “we will do it” and not in 2010 but by the end of the week. I’ll even give you a pen to sign your name Sir!
P.S God bless all the gay men and women in the United States Armed Forces
Last time I checked DADT wasn’t the responsibility of the First Lady.
James
>Last nights speech was interesting and made for a fun drinking game.
Sitting applause = beer
Standing applause = shot
LOL…your liver is far stronger than mine, my friend!
>Mr. Obama….NO MORE “we can do it”….it must now be “we will do it”
Before you go get all blustery over this, please understand that the President cannot write or change a law. I repeat: the President cannot write or change a law.
So, for him to get a law made or changed, he has to *pursuade* a majority of the members of Congress to pass or change the law.
It’s impossible for him to change the law “by the end of the week.” It’s possible for *Congress* to change the law by the end of the week–but on what planet is one week a reasonable time frame for enacting or changing a law in congress?!