Beyond framing the debate, the long GOP hegemony as painting any gay rights as ’special rights’ as gays and lesbians as ‘disordered’ and in supporting small assaults on their citizenship at the state level (State DOMAs, adoption bans) and using gay-bashing as a by-proxy for the loss of black race-baiting, and as starchy a litmus test as Roe v. Wade for anyone who wants to get on the national stage. It’s a stark contrast to national Democrats, where the non-incumbent Senate Candidates in IL, OH, NY have declared support for marriage equality and DADT repeal. Obama is going to be the last Democratic Presidential Candidate to soft-pedal gay rights. Jon Huntsman is probably the first GOP candidate, if he could convince the ‘Christians’ that Mormons aren’t a cult.

And Andrew has a tendency to fall in love with various personalities and political entities, dub them political, and get easily disappointed like a girl in a school yard crush. John Scalzi, on election night, pointed out that Obama will disappoint people; he won’t ‘fart cinnamon-scented rainbows’ and I think that Andrew wanted that–most people wanted that after the hell of the Bush years–but moving the ball any which way on gay rights is tricky; since the opposition party is cobbled together on imaginary racial grievance and xenophobia, it’s a serious enough dislocation for the country to have a Black President that there’s been a wave of high profile right wing domestic terrorism, and a low profile, but persistent percussion of hate crimes against the nearest vulnerable group–usually gays–in part because the GOP has fed the belief that gays are those people with anti-adoption and anti-civil rights referenda.

All that said, I’ve had some sharp disappointments: I wanted an openly gay cabinet member(I would’ve really liked Richard White as Secretary of the Navy); I wanted Obama to write a stop-loss executive order in the face of two wars, and then use that to demonstrate that gays in the military don’t disrupt unit cohesion. I wanted the preliminaries of whip operations on a DOMA repeal.

I think there are three reasons this has been slow.

First, the economic collapse; any movement on minority rights (as opposed to the Lily Ledbetter Fair Play Act) as drastic as above would be seen as ’special pleading’ at a time of national crisis when there’s real ground work to be played when one party is going to shout “fraud!” and “Homosexual agenda!” and “Faggots are deranged!” or “The Matthew Shepherd beating was a hoax” or “This is a hate crime against Christianity” (this for ENDA; anything else will be sheer Beckite fulmination).

Second, the Senate GOP has held up Executive branch appointees beyond ‘advise and consent’ in some weird temper tantrum, so the whole government is at 2/5 appointees (this does not distribute evenly, btw; though in this discussion, the OLC and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division are favorites to come in for abuse, after those pointed-headed freaks at State).

Third, like the health care debate, there’s a degree of ‘overlearning’ from the Clinton era, and caution, especially on culture war issues, which is understandable-by his very existence, the president incites 25% to paranoid delusions–and a misreading of what was wrong with Clinton’s attempt at military integration; it was jumping the gun, but as with a lot of the Clinton White House, there was ardor and good intentions laden with sloppiness. But, like the health care debate, there’s a reason to to wait and instead get health care done right; it’s the Holy Grail of Democratic politics, and get the Lance of Longenious and the Grail together, well…it’s an everybody thing, and the other thing is an important goal, but not an everybody thing.

Health Care and DADT/DOMA are tough votes. In either case, you have to start off by writing off the GOP (they’re crazy in their House, while they’re craven in the Senate) and anticipate and defend against their talking points about how this will teach every kindergarten boy to blast Liza Minelli and borrow mommy’s high heels and give each girl a flannel shirt and an Indigo Girls CD, or how it’ll be a dreadful fascist assault on ‘Christians.’ Then you have to write off the Democrats from the South, the Blue Dogs, and Evan Bayh’s Lobbyist SuperFriend Coalition. And because of Republican BS and Reid’s lack of spine, you need 60 votes. So, you’ve got to set up a hell of a Whip Operation, and move the various bills through their corresponding committees, then through cloture and a vote.

Then again, like the health care debate, there Democrats who are moving ahead without the White House; Congressmen Jerry Nadler/George Miller on DOMA and Congressman Patrick Murphy on DADT (who has few gay constituents, but has great integrity). In the Senate, we had no greater friend than Ted Kennedy, but Gillibrand is working on a DOMA repeal. Taken with the recent JFR article rebuking DADT as worthless, there’s the argument that once/whenever health care ends, there’s going to be a shift by toward other issues, and though it’ll be after the 2010 election, there’s clearly momentum for this to work out, and for the White House intervene once we get nearer critical mass. I’m not excited about it, but when the Pride Parade in Peoria is popular, it’s all over but the shouting–though the other party is good at having a grand temper tantrum and having it play out over CNN as if it were a grown up argument, rather than schoolyard jeering.

Well yes, and it’s untempered by any sense of the poltical and cultural realities of this country.

Sullivan is a foreigner and it really shows at times like these. He has spent his entire time in the states in Washington and New York, and for him, coming from a country that absolutely revolves in every matter imaginable around its capitol, that probably seess to him like it would give him some insight into how things move in this country. It just doesn’t, and he doesn’t get that.

What he seems unable to understand is the deep tribalism and sectarianism of this country. It seems not to have occurred to him at all that if Obama were to advocate against it DADT and for marriage eqiulaity would backfire for anohter 50 years. If Obama advocates for any cause that labeled liberal, it can only backfire. If Obama is seroious about advancing any of these cause, he will stay well clear of them. In particular with regard to DADT, Obama is dealing with a military community that initially only accepted him as a matter of grim-faced professionalism. He is winning them over on substance, but they are not inclined to trust (as opposed to obey) the judgement of any civilian leader at this point, for very good reasons, And here we are talking about a Democrat. ‘Nuff said.

Sullivan may well have considered this, but he doesn’t know this in his bones, it isn’t reflexive for him, and he weights it far too lightly.

I am saying this as a gay man with in a 10-year partnership with nearly 30 years of active and reserve service. I have just as much at stake as he does, and have for a lot longer. Andrew just needs to clue up and shut up on this particular point.

WaPo/ABCNews Poll – on general attitudes from 2008
Full WaPo Poll
more recent Gallup Poll
Zogby Poll – on military attitudes from 2006
Alcee Hastings – Miami Herald – White House pressure to back off DADT
Yglesias – Daily Beast – Matt Yglesias is disappointed… :(

On Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
White House Description

The blog post is from January 25th, the law was signed by the President four days later. LLFPA changes the law to counter the ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and allow damages to be sought up to 180 days after receiving a discriminatory pay check rather than 180 days from the original decision to discriminate in pay.

The Stimulus was introduced on January 26th, signed on February 17th. Took the Congress three weeks to spend almost $800 billion, about the same amount of time as LLFPA took, having been introduced on January 8th.

Where my personal frustration kicks in is that ARRA, the stimulus, took three weeks to pass and less than a quarter of the funds were to be spent in FY2009, much more in FY2010. Congress passed the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act in just under three months, CBO says it reforms will be in place by the end of 2010. ARRA squeaked by a partisan vote and had bipartisan opposition the weapon systems bill was unanimous in both houses.

Repealing DADT should be square in the middle of those. Support isn’t unanimous but more people support repealing the law than supported the stimulus. Yet programs that won’t even be mostly complete for months, if not more than a year, are worth the political effort and the time. If DADT were repealed tomorrow, tomorrow we’d stop discharging Arabic translators that we desperately need. Field medics that save lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As for the tackling many issues, he might disagree with you there.

And it is perhaps worth throwing out the real possibility that Obama’s lack luster performance on gay rights to date is due to a political but not heartfelt support for the issues at stake. As I recall, his support for marriage equality was pretty tepid in The Audacity of Hope.

On the other hand, it has only been nine months and the man has tackled more than many presidents do in their entire tenure. Which is equal parts impressive and all part of the problem I identify. No consolation to his gay supporters, perhaps, but not necessarily cause to write him off just yet.

Maybe he’s just slow, his children – whom I’m pretty sure he loves more than teh gays – have to wait 3-ish months to get a puppy they were promised, I guess we shouldn’t be expecting a lightning quick response from the Administration.

Seriously, though, I think there’s a tension between what the President could do and what he chooses to do that isn’t easily reconcilable. On one hand, ok, it’s not as much of a priority as Healthcare. Understandable.

On the other, closing Gitmo is more of a priority than repealing DADT, which is as much about civil rights as the integrity of the armed forces. The Lily Ledbetter Pay Act was passed right around the stimulus and while overdue as a numbers game doesn’t actually affect that many people. Clearly the Administration is willing to push relatively small legislation through on issues where there’s sizeable Republican pushback.

I think when a WaPo poll has majority support amongst Republicans for a repeal of DADT, it’s pretty hard to see how the President would’ve expended any political capital to slug it out with the Jim DeMints of the world. I think the risk, now, is that depending on how the economy goes and where health care reform sends his numbers his political vulnerability in 2010 will make touching gay rights even more of potential bomb than it is now.

It’s really just odd…because as much as Clinton might legitimately have said, “now isn’t a good time.” With President Obama the excuse doesn’t have nearly the same weight, nor, for that matter, does the President seem to be making risk averse choices on what priorities to push.

So his willingness to say chill out, I’m handling other things seems callous, after all he can walk and chew gum at the same time, and his statements of support seem insufficiently comforting when he has actively pressured members of his Caucus not to bring up DADT repeal.

In a lot of areas you see his pragmatism, his progressive policy preferences, and a solid moral barometer. When it comes to gay rights…not so much.

Seeing as this isn’t like desegregating where you have to reconstitute divisions, I’m not seeing how implementation would be any more difficult than simply not discharging people for an offence because it’s no longer an offence.

Could be my lack of imagination, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Every country that was competing for the Olympics sent their head of government, so I don’t get why sending Obama is a big deal.