by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday President Barack Obama sent the right-wing nut jobs into near convulsions when he finally decided to say something that has been painfully obvious to most Americans for more than a decade. The President announced that he regarded the hoary Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional because it discriminates against gay Americans. He added that he would immediately direct the Department of Justice to quit defending the 1996 law in Federal Court.
The Defense of Marriage Act which Newt's Congress passed in a flurry of hate and Bill Clinton inexplicably signed into law defines marriage as consisting of one man and one woman. (Traditionally, the definition and requirements of marriage had been left to the states.) Six states have already moved beyond that discriminatory nonsense, and several others have some form of "civil unions" designed to skirt the issue semantically through a process with a label other than marriage.
Just yesterday, in fact, Hawaii's Governor Abercrombie signed a civil unions bill into law for his state, and word came today that the Maryland State Senate has approved a gay marriage bill.
So while the loony edge of the Republican Party will see the President's move as pure red meat for the next election, it looks like the rest of America is quietly moving forward. President Obama's political sense remains astute.
Hopefully, the surprise Obama announcement on DOMA is a signal that he has finally given up on trying to compromise with people whose primary agenda is to make him unemployed and return America to a time when corporations ruled the country with abject disdain for the welfare of the people. America needs to be a world leader in the struggle to provide everyone with a good job, health care, education, and a clean and safe environment in which to work, play, and live.
President Obama, you were elected because a majority of Americans bought into your vision of what we as a nation ought to be about. You need to take off the gloves and fight your way back up to that moral high ground. Lead, damnit! Make us proud!
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday President Barack Obama sent the right-wing nut jobs into near convulsions when he finally decided to say something that has been painfully obvious to most Americans for more than a decade. The President announced that he regarded the hoary Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional because it discriminates against gay Americans. He added that he would immediately direct the Department of Justice to quit defending the 1996 law in Federal Court.
The Defense of Marriage Act which Newt's Congress passed in a flurry of hate and Bill Clinton inexplicably signed into law defines marriage as consisting of one man and one woman. (Traditionally, the definition and requirements of marriage had been left to the states.) Six states have already moved beyond that discriminatory nonsense, and several others have some form of "civil unions" designed to skirt the issue semantically through a process with a label other than marriage.
Just yesterday, in fact, Hawaii's Governor Abercrombie signed a civil unions bill into law for his state, and word came today that the Maryland State Senate has approved a gay marriage bill.
So while the loony edge of the Republican Party will see the President's move as pure red meat for the next election, it looks like the rest of America is quietly moving forward. President Obama's political sense remains astute.
Hopefully, the surprise Obama announcement on DOMA is a signal that he has finally given up on trying to compromise with people whose primary agenda is to make him unemployed and return America to a time when corporations ruled the country with abject disdain for the welfare of the people. America needs to be a world leader in the struggle to provide everyone with a good job, health care, education, and a clean and safe environment in which to work, play, and live.
President Obama, you were elected because a majority of Americans bought into your vision of what we as a nation ought to be about. You need to take off the gloves and fight your way back up to that moral high ground. Lead, damnit! Make us proud!
2 comments:
There is nothing so far in Obama's resume to suggest he'll lead, Rock. On health care, he surrendered the public option (even as a bargaining chip) before talks began. On the bailout, he refused to force banks to lend some of the billions they raked in. And though some of that was the TARP program under Bush, the latter phases were initiated by Geithner, Summers, et al.
My hope for the mess in Wisconsin is that the common man may finally understand that he's been involved on the losing side of a class war for some time now. It's time to recognize that fact.
My problem is that there's no presidential candidate I feel comfortable with. I'll vote for Obama, but hold my nose while doing so.
How do you completely flip a country that is so rigidly set in being so unbelievably close-minded, brain-washed by religion and unable to relax and think for themselves? How do you ease them into knowing that homosexuals in no way deserve to be discriminated and EVERYONE deserves equality... how do you ease them into knowing that heterosexuals are not the only ones worth having all their rights when this country has lived by ass-backwards thinking for so long? It feels like forever that we have been stuck in the mud.. stuck in the crazy thinking of a hundred years ago. His job isn't flipping a switch. He's got to teach an entire country new ways and reassure them every second of the way. He's only one person. And he's trying.
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