The two no votes were cast by Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7). Barry was adamant that his vote was not a repudiation of the GLBT community:
Before casting his vote, Barry gave an impassioned speech noting that he is a longtime supporter of gay rights. But Barry said that his constituents oppose same-sex marriage, and that he believed the council should have authorized a referendum on the issue.
"I stand here today to express in no uncertain terms my strong commitment to the gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender community on almost every issue except this one," Barry said.
He then went on to plead with gay and lesbian residents not to hold his "no" vote against him.
"It's not fair to make this one issue a litmus test as to one's commitment to human rights, to justice, and I resent those who would make it a litmus test," Barry said.
It is up to the GLBT community to determine what is and isn't a "litmus test" for their support. If I were them, I would not accept Barry's plea. I guess it is fortunate for the former mayor that I am not them.
In any event, congratulations to the District for taking such a big and important stride forward in our nation's ongoing quest for equality.
UPDATE: Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that there is very little difference between Barry and Barack Obama. That may or may not be true, and I imagine it is fortunate for Obama that he isn't being placed in a situation where he'd have to cast a vote on this.
19 comments:
"UPDATE: Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that there is very little difference between Barry and Barack Obama. That may or may not be true, and I imagine it is fortunate for Obama that he isn't being placed in a situation where he'd have to cast a vote on this."
That's a cop-out. Obama could use the bully pulpit to advocate for marriage equality, and it would mean a lot more than the twelfth vote by a city council. Instead he can't even get his act together to end DADT, a move which has a lot more popular support than SSM.
Which isn't to say Obama is that unusual. Most of the Democratic Party would fail such a theoretical litmus test (it goes without saying Republicans are worse). And it certainly wouldn't be irrational to say most of the Democratic Party but has a problematic approach to human rights in that respect. But it would be intellectually dishonest to act as if Marion Barry were some bizarre outlier.
Marion Barry is a pretty bizarre outlier for someone who purports to support civil rights, yet thinks there should be referenda on them. I don't know of many other members of the Democratic Party who hold such a position. Democrats tend to be cognizant of the fact that leaving minorities' rights to the preference of the voting majority is a good way to screw the minority, which is why Dems are far more supportive than Republicans of an independent judiciary that can protect constitutional rights. Dems generally consider the Warren Court to have been a great Court; Republicans regard it as dog crap on the shoe of jurisprudence that should be scraped off as quickly as possible. (Which is why Republican president nominate federal judges who are busy scraping.)
Obama opposed Proposition 8 in California, which did exactly what Barry thinks is desirable in DC: put marriage equality up for a popular vote. To say that they hold the same position is ludicrous. Barry wants the credit for supporting LGBT equality without actually stepping up and being a political leader, instead ducking the issue by leaving it to popular vote. Obama is personally doubtful that SSM should exist, but he's opposed putting the matter to a popular vote and has not spoken against court decisions that deemed it a (state) constitutional right. And having been a constitutional law scholar, he probably has the chops to argue against the judges' rulings if he thinks they are wrong and wants to take a stand against a claim of a right to SSM.
"Instead he can't even get his act together to end DADT, a move which has a lot more popular support than SSM."
Yes, having the executive unilaterally override the legislative branch was exactly why I wanted Obama to succeed Bush. I just didn't get enough of that behavior in the prior 8 years.
From an academic standpoint there is undoubtedly a difference between Obama saying he wants repeal Don't Ask but then pursuing a very limited strategy that limits his own involvement in deference to elected representatives and Barry saying he wants gay marriage but will limit his involvement in deference to the voters.
From a human rights standpoint where gays are the ones being singled out that's not a lot of difference at all. We can say a lot of things that sound good to us (think "separate but equal") but doesn't do a thing for an oppressed group.
And does anyone really think Obama has a principled belief that marriage can only be legally defined as a heterosexual institution? I sure don't. I think like any successful public figure Obama rightly feels the need to lie through his teeth to stay on the right side of political opinion. Especially in today's media world a cynical campaign of feigned outrage will take down any honest politician aspiring to represent more than a quirky congressional district. SSM is an especially treacherous issue. Since most elected officials at the federal level are well-to-do, well-educated, and well-traveled, I believe their personal beliefs are far to the left on this issue. I would bet my bottom dollar that most Congressional Democrats secretly believe gay couples should have full marriage rights, and I strongly suspect that most elected Republicans would at least be all for civil unions if the religious interest groups underwriting them wouldn't stage a revolt over it.
But I guess it's possible Obama has a deeply held conviction of "one man, one woman" and thinks the best reading of the Constitution allows this discrimination. I just find it awefully hard to swallow considering I don't think when Clinton And Gore were in office they were more liberal than Obama, and now they're both converts to the SSM cause. Maybe they both just had a "come to gay Jesus" moment, but I believe that once they're free of the shackles of elected office they're free to speak up when the emperor has no clothes. I wouldn't be surprised if Kerry follows suit (if he hasn't already) since he's a very safe incumbent sitting in Massechusetts. John Edwards is about the only Democratic presidential ticketholder who I could believe has a genuine problem with SSM, and that's going off of Bob Shrum's assessment.
When either the political tides or retirement allow him the opportunity, Obama will change his tune.
Oh, and I don't know that much about the legal debate on this, but wikipedia tells me that military law experts conclude Obama has all the legal authority he really needs to suspend DADT. If I were to take a wild guess this is because the executive retains broad discretion in applying the laws set by Congress because that's the only way the government could function under the weight of ever-expanding regulation. So not spending resources to boot out known gays and lesbians is no more abusive of the system than probably a dozen other military rules that are considered minor in relation to the cost of enforcement. Or, like, every act of prosecutorial discretion ever.
Phew. I need to bury (Barry?) myself in a cave of casebooks for the next two weeks now and definitely stop blog-commenting. Happy finals time to the rest of you.
"And does anyone really think Obama has a principled belief that marriage can only be legally defined as a heterosexual institution?"
Uh, where has he said that is his belief? In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman." He voted against a Federal Marriage Amendment and, though not in Congress at the time, opposed the 1996 DOMA that for the first time took the definition of marriage out of the hands of the states and put it in the U.S. Code. Obama has said he supports civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized (a federalist solution that the FMA pushed by Bush would have made impossible).
"From a human rights standpoint where gays are the ones being singled out that's not a lot of difference at all."
Marion Barry: Referenda on gays' rights are good, so good that I won't vote in favor of a measure I claim to support because I think it needs to be put to a referendum instead.
Obama: Referenda on gays' rights are bad.
Yeah, no difference there for gay people in California or Maine or any other state that will override its courts or legislature through a popular vote in order to deny equality.
And before it comes up, the DOJ is obliged to defend duly-enacted statutes like DOMA unless those statutes are clearly unconstitutional (which DOMA isn't, at least to the extent it merely reaffirms the longstanding tradition that states are not obliged to recognize out-of-state marriages that violate their own state's public policy). And Lambda Legal has been citing the cases about incestuous and underage marriage for years in order to make its own legal points (usually about how a state can allow SSM/civil unions without causing disruption to marriage law of others states). So clearly those cases aren't kryptonite in themselves ... only when they're cited to support DOMA.
"wikipedia tells me that military law experts conclude Obama has all the legal authority he really needs to suspend DADT"
Theoretically, Obama could use 10 U.S.C. 12305 ("Authority of President to suspend certain laws relating to promotion, retirement, and separation") under current circumstances (a period in which "members of a reserve component are serving on active duty") to declare that every gay member of the armed forces is essential to the national security of the United States. But that raises the question: why not also every adulterous member of the armed forces? why not also any of a long list of the behaviors that get people removed from military service? what is the military justification for ignoring violations of one rule but not others? And if Obama admits he is unilaterally doing something with the military in a time of war that is not justified in his role as Commander in Chief, there will be hell to pay.
There's also the problem that it's a solution that's good only so long as we have reservists on active duty. In other words, gays can stay in the military only so long as the military is incapable of meeting its commitments without the Reserve and Guard. Once/if we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the condition for the exercise of power under 10 U.S.C. 12305 no longer exists, DADT comes back into effect, and we've shown that it's OK for gays to be in the military only when their lives are in danger.
I'm going to force myself to be brief.
"Yeah, no difference there for gay people in California or Maine or any other state that will override its courts or legislature through a popular vote in order to deny equality."
But since Obama ostensibly wants to take a principled stand on "states' rights" (conveniently removing him as president from much of the debate) and the Constitution not doing jack, those referenda--a process the legislature itself sets up to allow an override--will pass most of the time. Let's not kid ourselves.
"why not also every adulterous member of the armed forces? "
Because marriage vows are widely serious business so ignoring them calls into question the adulterers commitment to his oath as a service member. It is at least intellectually defensible.
In practice doubt the number of discharges for adultery comes close to DADT, and I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of service members who are unfaithful are higher than the percentage who are gay.
But since Obama ostensibly wants to take a principled stand on "states' rights" (conveniently removing him as president from much of the debate) and the Constitution not doing jack, those referenda--a process the legislature itself sets up to allow an override--will pass most of the time. Let's not kid ourselves.
There's also the fact that the states historically have been the ones who define what marriage is and the federal government defers to them (which is why one part of DOMA is a significant break with federalist tradition), but whevs. Again, you keep claiming that Obama has made a substantive statement on whether the U.S. Constitution has any bearing on SSM rights, but you haven't actually quoted him or given any reference to where and when he's said that. That quote I provided from the Chicago Daily Tribune has sweet fuck-all to do with Constitutional arguments, which Obama is not going to make lightly. So what's your basis for your ongoing assertions that Obama has made any legal argument against SSM?
Referenda in most states are actually not that easy. Massachusetts has SSM because the process for getting a court decision overturned either legislatively or through a referendum is very, very difficult. If New York's legislature passes SSM, it would be nearly impossible to overturn it by referendum, because the legislature decides what ballot measures get onto the ballot, and they're unlikely to do that after they've just *passed* SSM. And the question of whether NY should have a state constitutional convention only comes onto the ballot every 20 years, and won't come up again until 2017, at which point an awful lot of elderly people who are uncomfortable with homosexuality will be dead, and another wave of young people who are pro-gay rights will be voting.
Because marriage vows are widely serious business so ignoring them calls into question the adulterers commitment to his oath as a service member. It is at least intellectually defensible.
But it's not mandatory to vow sexual fidelity in order to get married. Hell, it's not even mandatory to understand what you're promising in order to get married; my wedding ceremony was in Sanskrit, which I doubt even the priest understood entirely. Marriage is a legal contract for which you sign papers, none of which specify anything about sexual fidelity. The military's penalties for adultery go well beyond what the states that still have adultery prohibitions on their books will impose: up to a year in confinement plus a dishonorable discharge versus a $150 fine.
Since marriage is a legal institution there's nothing necessarily wrong with the state setting some rules for it, especially when you're dealing with the military, another state institution. In American society marriage is commonly understood as a pledge of sexual fidelity, so evidence of adultery is circumstantial evidence of untrustworthiness. If we accept that it's legitimate to act on some degree of circumstantial evidence in order to maintain "good order and discipline in the armed forces," then this is not a problem except it could be said to discriminate against straight people. But the solution to that is legal SSM.
Even if it's basically a bad or unfair policy , and I'm guessing some courts have found convincing reasons to strike adultery laws down, it's nowhere near as unfair as discrimination based on gender/sexual orientation. It does not follow that if DADT goes, everything goes.
And I really doubt that there are many court martials for adultery, or that more than a slim number of those are simply pretexts for administering discipline over some matter that is harder to prove or punish.
"There's also the fact that the states historically have been the ones who define what marriage is and the federal government defers to them (which is why one part of DOMA is a significant break with federalist tradition), but whevs. Again, you keep claiming that Obama has made a substantive statement on whether the U.S. Constitution has any bearing on SSM rights, but you haven't actually quoted him or given any reference to where and when he's said that."
I understand the appeal to legal tradition, but I don't accept it as valid. Like Hubert Humphrey said, old traditions of "states' rights" should give way to emerging concerns like human rights. And the historical interpretations by the courts are subject to drastic change.
Now, if Obama has said that SSM is an issue that is for the states to decide, he is implicitly refuting the notion that the Constitution permits the discrimination we're talking about.
As to bout referenda, I just don't see a whole lot of daylight between a popular vote forcing the issue versus legislators subject to popular opinion voting on it *when I look at it from the human rights standpoint*. And sometimes the voters might be more progressive, as seems to be the case in New York. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5B157K20091202
But the bottom line is this: I don't believe Obama is doing all that he can for gay rights, even working within constitutional restraints and executive propriety. What about the bully pulpit? He gave us the health care speech, and the Afghanistan speech, but where's the equal rights speech?
Doh! Implicitly *endorse* the notion. Not refute.
Since marriage is a legal institution there's nothing necessarily wrong with the state setting some rules for it, especially when you're dealing with the military, another state institution.
Is the military, as another state institution, allowed to set any rules about things that are themselves not legal institutions? I'm just trying to figure out how far you'd be willing to go with "the executive can decide for himself which acts of Congress should actually be enforced with regard to the military."
And sometimes the voters might be more progressive, as seems to be the case in New York.
Did you see how SSM polled in California and Maine before the anti-SSM folks started running misinformation about churches being forced to perform SSMs and kindergarteners learning about gay sex? (For examples of states where the legislature was out ahead of the voters.) The pro-SSM legislators in NY are not idiots; they had good reason not to put this question on the ballot for a voter referendum.
If we had a referendum in NY today, SSM might pass. If we had the referendum in the way the system requires -- with plenty of lead time for propagandizing -- it would lose. You need a much larger margin than that poll indicates to sustain an actual victory at the polls on this issue. The people who are "anti" are mostly *very* anti; they are convinced the world will basically come to an end if they lose. In contrast, the folks who are "pro" are mostly wouldn't-it-be-nice-but-I-can't-take-off-from-work-for-this.
Now, if Obama has said that SSM is an issue that is for the states to decide, he is implicitly refuting the notion that the Constitution permits the discrimination we're talking about.
Um, no, because so far as I know he is saying it should be decided by states in preference to being decided by Congress, WHICH IS WHY HE OPPOSED DOMA AND VOTED AGAINST THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT. If you have to go to "implicitly" to figure out someone's stance on a Constitutional question, there's a very good chance you're misinterpreting them on something that's complicated and not easily reduced to a single talking point.
I don't believe Obama is doing all that he can for gay rights, even working within constitutional restraints and executive propriety.
Sure. I don't think he's "doing all that he can" for a lot of issues. The bully pulpit should not be abused; there's already murmurs about how people are getting tired of Obama's interrupting the evening programming for another speech or press conference. The impact of the bully pulpit is not an inexhaustible resource.
In less than one year in office, he has presented one major new policy initiative (health care reform) and discussed what to do about an existing situation left on his hands (the war in Afghanistan). I just find the "why isn't my issue getting the same attention as these matters of life and death" to be a little odd. People are dying for lack of health care coverage. Our soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. Nobody, to my knowledge, has died for lack of marriage. Where one could see a matter of life and death involved, Obama HAS repeatedly and publicly in multiple fora stated the need for a hate crimes law that covers sexual orientation and gender identity.
There's also the question of what, exactly, he's supposed to be talking about with respect to gay rights on the marriage issue. As Commander in Chief, he is responsible for the war in Afghanistan; if his surge strategy fails, he's going to get all the blame while Congressional Democrats say he should have just left, and Congressional Republicans say that it's the fault of the timetable.
With health care reform, Congress had several lengthy bills already moving around (Obama actually kept himself out of the debate on which particular one to choose). His speeches were essentially saying, "Let's just get *something* done here."
On same-sex marriage, I'm not quite sure what Obama is supposed to be pushing, particularly if you're convinced that SSM is a Constitutional right. If that's so, then the federal courts are going to be settling that question. I find it unlikely that any judge Obama has appointed will be hostile to arguments about SSM's being a Constitutional right. What else can he do on this matter that would not exceed Constitutional restraints? It would be egregiously wrong for him to tell the federal courts how they ought to be ruling on this or to be making SSM support an explicit litmus test.
And to come back to the original point in all this, which was your claim that Obama and Barry are equally bad on this issue, Barry knows just how a referendum on SSM at this time in DC would turn out. In contrast, Obama's preference for leaving it to the states through their courts and legislatures has allowed a couple more states to legalize SSM. If you're as consequentialist as you claim about the actual effects of their preferences on gay rights, Obama's preference is helping a lot more than Barry's would.
First, I think you're dancing around the DADT issue. That's where I'd say Obama could make best use of the bully pulpit precisely because, in addition to being higher in the polls, it relates to his Commander in Chief role. (And as far as consequentialism goes, I can more easily imagine the career damage--itself a large harm--caused by DADT resulting in suicide than I can imagine hate crimes legislation preventing homophobia-based homicide. Do you think the prospect of a third consecutive life sentence would have stopped Matthew Shephard's murder? I don't because it's hard to imagine the type of offender who could be less of a rational actor. Probably only the creation of some sort of Super Death Penalty would make a difference. Of course, hate crimes laws are a way of making a normative statement, but as far as Obama's concerned it's a pretty low-cost measure to support, and as far as consequentialism is concerned it's low impact. Just to be clear though I'm not saying these laws are illegitimate for targeting intent because no one who knows the first thing about criminal law or critical thinking can credibly say that.)
As far as bans on being openly gay vs. cheating on a spouse goes, maybe I am just too postmodernly bourgeois but I think being honest about one's sexuality is inherently superior to being dishonest about one's commitment. (Even if we accept that the spouses have "an arrangement" we could consider legal marriage to be a vow to the state. Now maybe the state has no business requiring or enforcing that vow, but I'd say that becomes a right to privacy concern as opposed to an equal protection concern.)
Finally, as far as Marion Barry is concerned I'm not familiar with all the local politics, or with anything in his biography except the cocaine. However, from a "serve my constituents" standpoint (which I prefer to call a "job security" standpoint because of course some constituents have more voice than others) it might make perfect sense for him to vote with the minority here if his ward (I assume DC has wards or districts) is less progressive on this issue. I bet if Obama was governor of Texas he'd be less progressive and if he were governor of Vermont he'd be more progressive. Call it a hunch.
I suppose it may be possible that Barry personally disapproves of SSM and only made sympathetic noises because he felt that was in line with the majority opinion, but I just think that lying about being against it (or neutral) is more likely because, as you admit, the majority being against it is more likely. I agree saying he personally wants SSM is hedging, but it's basically comparable to Obama backing hate crimes. More an attempt at signaling than anything else.
That's where I'd say Obama could make best use of the bully pulpit precisely because, in addition to being higher in the polls, it relates to his Commander in Chief role.
Except DADT was formulated almost entirely within Congress. It was not based on decision-making by the executive, and Clinton signed it as a compromise between his campaign stance (I will ensure gays can serve in the military) and the status quo ex ante (actively hunting out gays to expel). And I'm not sure I can say much more about Obama's not wanting to use the bully pulpit for too many issues at once. He's been criticized for months for not moving on jobs -- and at over 10% official unemployment (with even more people who have simply stopped looking for work because there's none to be found), I think it's fair to say that it's an issue affecting more Americans than SSM or DADT -- but only a couple days ago did Obama actually say much about it. Again, the nation's attention is not an inexhaustible resource.
You're treating sentencing enhancement as the most important (or perhaps only) aspect of federal hate crimes legislation. On the contrary, hate crimes laws were first passed not because there needed to be heavier penalties for the generic underlying crime, but because localities lacked the resources or simply refused to prosecute crimes committed against certain disfavored minorities by members of the majority. The federal government responded by classifying these as federal crimes that the feds could prosecute. The original 1969 law didn't impose greater penalties than state laws generally did for the same crimes. The sentencing enhancements didn't come until 1994 with Clinton's tuff-on-crime Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. So I think you are mistaken about the rationale behind hate crimes law.
it might make perfect sense for him to vote with the minority here if his ward (I assume DC has wards or districts) is less progressive on this issue.
His ward may be if we assume that less progressive on gay rights has some correlation with "poorer, less educated, less white/Asian," but so is Harry Thomas Jr.'s (ward 5). And Marion Barry's job security is pretty healthy; he came into office with 96% of the vote and is unlikely to get a challenger on the basis of a SSM vote. The reason he is defensively claiming that he's totally with the gays, totally! is that he is worried about LGBT deep pockets funding a challenger against him. Outside money could make a significant difference in an election in a low-income ward like his.
Evidence:
In a emotional speech before he cast his vote, Barry pleaded with gay men and lesbians not to hold his vote against him, saying that he has battled for gay rights since he began his political career in the 1970s.
"I stand here today to express, in no uncertain terms, my strong commitment to the gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender community on almost every issue except this one," Barry said.
Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who represents a majority-black ward in Northeast, came to a different conclusion.
"I represent a ward that is torn down the middle on this issue," Thomas said. "But as a legislator, I cannot allow my personal . . . or religious life to allow for the disenfranchisement of any individual in the District."
When I say it relates to his role of Commander in Chief I mean he could make some effort to tie this to the manpower demands of his escalation in Afghanistan; and repealing DADT polls higher by the way. Use the bully pulpit, say it impacts essential personnel (which is true), see about pushing a repeal through with funding for this new foreign exploit. Jesus, Republicans go around complaining that national security is compromised because we don't pull prisoners' fingernails off with pliers, meanwhile Obama stays quiet about us irrationally kicking out service members. And since he plans to be out of Afghanistan by 2011, this would all be time-sensitive. (This would still be more useful than focusing on jobs, because contrary to the belief of voters of all ideologies, the president doesn't have a magic wand to fix the economy. Aside from using TARP to stop a meltdown and considering future regulation there's just not that much to be done. We just hear this drumbeat of "jobs" in politics because it's a huge concern.)
I don't think the other aspects of federal hate crimes laws would really have that big a deterrent effect on people who target LGBT victims. We're not seeing what was going on in, say, Mississippi in the 60s.
Back to Barry, what do you see as his motivation for the nay vote? Is it animus? A personal belief (like Obama's professed belief) that marriage is strictly man/woman?
Me, I'm sure he is afraid of the LGBT community funding an opponent, but to me his vote is evidence he's more afraid of annoying a majority of his voters and religious leaders in his ward. He's basically said as much. His past margins of victory suggest maybe he is being more self serving than other Democratic figures, but most of them are still very self-serving.
Use the bully pulpit, say it impacts essential personnel (which is true), see about pushing a repeal through with funding for this new foreign exploit. Jesus, Republicans go around complaining that national security is compromised because we don't pull prisoners' fingernails off with pliers, meanwhile Obama stays quiet about us irrationally kicking out service members.
But Obama hasn't stayed quiet about this. Your facts are wrong. He hasn't made a speech about it that preempts primetime TV (then again, he hasn't done that on the jobs issue either), but he and his spokespeople have repeatedly affirmed their support for allowing gays to serve openly in the military. E.g.,
Press briefing ("I think the President made a series of promises, including repealing "don't ask don't tell," ensuring that a hate crimes bill would come to his desk and that he would sign it. Those are promises that he made sincerely and takes quite seriously and is happy that one of them will become law today.")
Obama remarks ("And finally, I want to say a word about "don't ask, don't tell." As I said before -- I'll say it again -- I believe "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't contribute to our national security. In fact, I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security. Now, my administration is already working with the Pentagon and members of the House and the Senate on how we'll go about ending this policy, which will require an act of Congress. Someday, I'm confident, we'll look back at this transition and ask why it generated such angst, but as Commander-in-Chief, in a time of war, I do have a responsibility to see that this change is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term. That's why I've asked the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a plan for how to thoroughly implement a repeal. I know that every day that passes without a resolution is a deep disappointment to those men and women who continue to be discharged under this policy -- patriots who often possess critical language skills and years of training and who've served this country well. But what I hope is that these cases underscore the urgency of reversing this policy not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it is essential for our national security.").
You are taking the stance that Obama should be single-handedly suspending DADT in his role as Commander in Chief, and that's just not how the White House thinks they should go about this issue. They consider the repeal of DADT (and DOMA) to be *legislative* goals. They frame the repeal as part of their civil rights agenda.
Aside from using TARP to stop a meltdown and considering future regulation there's just not that much to be done. We just hear this drumbeat of "jobs" in politics because it's a huge concern.
Actually, Obama is being criticized by the right for health care reform that conservatives say will impose more burdens on employers for covering employees and thereby make employers unwilling to hire. (And also just for having a general climate of regulatory instability that makes business nervous). He's being criticized by the left (Paul Krugman especially) for tax cuts having been such a big chunk of the stimulus bill despite their having much less impact on the economy than direct federal spending and aid to state and local governments. In particular, many on the left have been wondering for almost a year now why we aren't fighting the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression with some of the tools of the Great Depression, including a federal jobs program like the Works Progress Administration.
Me, I'm sure he is afraid of the LGBT community funding an opponent, but to me his vote is evidence he's more afraid of annoying a majority of his voters and religious leaders in his ward.
Yes, that's exactly what the WPost article I just linked said. Except you keep leaving out that people like Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. who actually believe in equality will vote against the preferences of the religious leaders and majority of constituents. Barry has a pretty comfortable seat from his Ward; his vote demonstrates that LGBT rights are not worth his winning by merely 60% rather than the 77% he got in the 2008 Dem Primary and 92% General Election. And his craven faux-apology for the vote demonstrates that he doesn't have the courage of any particular conviction.
"You are taking the stance that Obama should be single-handedly suspending DADT in his role as Commander in Chief, and that's just not how the White House thinks they should go about this issue."
Yes, and it's not high-minded principle, it's butt-covering on a civil rights issue. One that probably doesn't expose him to much risk in the first place. Remind you of anyone else in DC?
When does Obama expect this legislative push to come around? Well, the message to the LGBT has been "no time soon." And if it doesn't happen in the next year, it probably doesn't happen in the two years after that once the Republicans take a huge bite out of the Congressional Democratic margin. And who knows what the political landscape will be three years from now?
But David's original post is right that we should keep in mind what the LGBT community says about all this. I don't know about you, but the members of that community I know personally are generally very disappointed with Obama, and (if they're being charitable) say he is delaying and passing the buck.
And we're really on a tangent, but as far as jobs and the economy go, I maintain that the president has a lot less to do with this, especially in the long run than most political figures pretend. (Unless of course they're in power and things are going poorly or they're in the opposition and things are going well.)
This is not a fringe view among economists. But I'm not sure why you even see this as relevant since it mostly relates to the power of the purse, surely at least as legislative an issue as the management of military personnel.
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