After releasing some preliminary notes about the federal employee benefits memorandum President Obama will sign today, OPM director John Berry just held a media conference call and explained a few more details about what to expect. Hint: Not a whole lot more than you thought.
Rush transcript:
Why is this a memorandum (which expires after Obama’s term)? And not an executive order?
“A presidential memorandum has the same standing as an executive order … and has the same impact. … [It] has strong standing. This is linked directly with the law.”
Was signing this memo a reaction to criticism from the gay community that’s been brewing?
“On the timing, I’m entering my 8th week on the job, this administration is still in its early days. We just recently the 100 day mark. These things, we have to move and do analysis and care on them. We have been looking at them and working together with various counsels, the DOJ, State Dept … this has been underway for many months. When we completed our work and made our recommendations to the president … he agreed and adopted them.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
There’s a concern that Obama’s announcement is granting benefits that federal employees already enjoy, provided to them under the Clinton administration. Are you really creating new benefits?
“The president is making the anti-discrimination thing very clear. … Gender identity will be added and made very clear in our guidance to federal agencies. Our argument is that is based on legal authority … that way it does not limit itself to the term of an administration … that is a new approach and a new argument. … What you have described has … been subject to the whim of a supervisor. If you have an enlightened supervisor, yes, that is a possibility [for same-sex partners to receive benefits and to take leave for a partner’s ill child]. … What the president is doing today is making this no longer optional, he’s making this mandatory … it’s now the policy of the federal government. This is the president of the United States confirming a mandatory right. … I think history is going to reflect that.”
Is gender identity part of this?
“It would certainly be my expectation.”
What do you say to gays who say it doesn’t go far enough?
“This is a first step, not a final step. This is an attempt to get our federal house in order. … The president is taking bold action to do just that. … The gay community can be extremely proud that this president is with us and stands with us 100 percent on the core issues that we care about deeply about.”
Why is Obama signing the memorandum at 5:45pm EST when he’ll miss all the evening news cycles?
Paraphrasing: He’s got a busy schedule.
Earlier today, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s Rea Carey discussed the memo.
GPW
This is bullshit, what’s next 10 free acres and a mule?
We have been sold out and lied to.
emb
I’m sad to say the more I hear about this the less impressed I am (and I wasn’t very impressed to begin with). Obama and the Dems really need a little values-clarification.
SM
I want to know what all the Obama bashers are contributing to THEIR equality fight?
How many people are they out educating, talking to, businesses contacted, letters etc.
Obama campaigned every damn day on the road for 2 years for his victory…ALL OVER.
Why the hell should he take your civil rights issues seriously when he does not see you all doing it.
I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion a lot of the gay community wants SERIOUS social change in this country without having to work for it ALSO.
timncguy
It is being reported on AmericaBlog that these “NEW” benefits are nothing new at all. These same benfits have been available to same-sex partners of federal employees since the Clinton administration.
http://www.americablog.com/
TANK
@SM:
Why can’t you hate yourself in private? Not as rewarding?
Religion_Hurts
We are wasting our time and money with anything political. There is only one thing in the entire world that makes “gay” WRONG – it is religion. If you want rights you need to make that ‘wrong’ go away. You are fighting the wrong battle. It isn’t politics you need to change, it’s minds, minds that have been brainwashed into believing “gay is wrong.”
Until you fix that, it’s all a big waste of time and energy.
TANK
@Religion_Hurts:
Nah. Too many faggots believe in wizardry and that the natural order was suspended than that a jewish minx told a lie for that to be MORE tenable.
OldFAQ
SM – No Obama bashers in here. Go to “Fox Nation” if you want to read some serious bashing. Do you think those six states that now have marriage equality happened without LGBT involvement? And the other states that have passed domestic partnerships even overiding governor vetos? Obama sure as hell had nothing to do with that. He doesn’t even support marriage equality. AT the very least could he have at least congratulated the people and organizations that did make it possible? Still waiting on that one. And yes, I want SERIOUS social change. I expect the president I voted for to lead the way. Especially on FEDERAL legislation. And if he won’t, then he can step aside while we forge ahead to create new alliances that WILL get the job done. If Obama and the DNC want to continue ignoring and minimizing us, they can do it. But without our money and votes. Now that’s democracy in action.
michael
@SM Obama will be well rewarded for his “2 years on the road” it will make him rich, very rich. I see a lot of LGBT’s doing things. I guess those demonstrations in California mean nothing? Or all the contributions sent to HRC and the DNC, though like myself many have stopped their DNC contributions over the DOMA legal brief. Personally, I have spoke on the radio twice. Spoke at two Prop. 8 rallies outside of California, volunteered as a counsellor for a LGBT youth organization, chose to get married in California instead of Vancouver to show my support. How dare you assume that people are doing nothing. I have a feeling the person doing nothing is you, finger pointing always says more about the finger pointing what the finger is pointing to.
And your bullshit theory that Obama is not taking us seriously because we are not “working hard enough” is just that, bullshit. He is not taking us seriously because #1 he is against gay marriage #2 he sleeps with the enemy, remember Rick Warren? And he thought he could take our money, get our votes and that we would sit quietly with our hands in our laps. Does not look like thats happening now does it. You might be okay being included with those who commit incest, seeing a president fight for that which he promised to start working to remove as soon as he hit office. Tell me why are you really upset about people being upset with Obama? I have a feeling it has nothing to do with LGBT anything.
andy
@oldFaq. Well said! Obama DOES NOT support Marriage equality. Even Donald Trump and the former miss California know this well publicized fact. Again, why is still ok to legislate discrimination against law abiding citizens?
SM
@TANK:
I don’t hate myself at all. Can I start sending all the ridiculous posts you make towards Obama to my straight friends and have them pass it along…all people who have gone out of their way to support you.
Trash Obama…GOOD LUCK OUT THERE ON YOUR OWN~
Idiots..ALL OF YOU
OldFAQ
@Andy. Because they can. At least they can until we fight back and say “No You Can’t!”
OldFAQ
@SM. Straight friends? Bubba, as condescending as you are, I doubt you have ANY friends of any sexual orientation. You can move on now, your flame moment is over.
SM
@OldFAQ:
So now I’m a Bubba? Damn you sure are wrong a lot…no wonder you all lose so many battles.
Idiot
OldFAQ
@SM. Say it in fluent Mandarin. Then I might be impressed. Otherwise, yawn.
InExile
@SM: While I commend you for getting involved in fighting the Prop 8 on behalf of gay people, I think your criticism of gay people fighting for their own cause is appalling.
There is an old saying about judging others without walking a mile in their shoes. Many of us have been fighting for equal rights for years and I find it quite insulting that you lump us all together and generalize what we as gay people have or have not done to further our own cause. Let me ask you a few questions.
1. Have you been told by an employer that someone else was getting a promotion because they had a “wife and children”, and basically your family is not a family?
2. Have you watched most of your friends die of AIDS within your own age group with the exception of a few to the point you can go out in a city you lived for 20 years and not know anyone?
3. Have you campaigned for democrats and donated to their election only to have them forget about you?
4. And lastly, have you had to move to a foreign country loosing you house, your career, your friends, your family, and the place you called home for over 20 years just to be with your partner because your relationship (bi-national) is not recognized in your own country?
Maybe you are a big fan of President Obama and that is OK, I also voted for the man and sent him money. But my view may be somewhat different than yours from where I sit.
This man made promises, not for next term, but for THIS TERM! When someone makes promises, I expect those promises kept.
SM
@InExile:
Here again you know nothing. I have walked a mile in your shoes…idiot.
I have a gay brother and I put myself on the line DAILY standing up for your community in areas where you are not liked. I have had bottles and insults hurled at me.
I campaigned harder for No On Prop 8 than most gay people. I replaced my signs when they were cut up with knives.
The Democrats have not forgotten about you…YOU ALL NEED TO DO SOME OF THE WORK TOO!
TANK
SM doesn’t get it. HE doesn’t understand that the gay community, in justifiably HARSHLY criticizing OBAMA’s BIGOTED and harmful policies and tactics of as of late, is alienating our straigt allies from supporting him, too. It’s not straight vs. gay, as this idiot thinks it is…and that obama has a gun to our heads…he’s alienating a lot more people outside of the gay community, too.
TANK
@SM:
That’s right. You’re a breeder. You have no idea.
SM
@TANK:
Get a life…there are people out there who put their lives on the line defending you when they don’t have to.
TANK
@SM:
You’ve put your life on the line defending me? That’ll be the day. Get off the cross. You have no conception of what it’s like.
SM
@TANK:
FUCK YOU LOSER….You have no idea what I have gone through for my brother and you community.
TANK
@SM:
Oh poor you with all your hetero privilege. Booohooooooo. You’re straight and an ally who walked in a march and has a queer brother. I guess that puts you on the same footing as, say, franklin kameny. What you’ve “sacrificed” to do the right thing…you want sympathy and oppression cred. We can do without allies like you.
TANK
You’re just not qualified to talk intelligently about this issue, SM. You worship at the feet of obama and the democratic party. This DOJ brief is inexcusable and the memorandum is meaningless…demonstrably. It doesn’t include healthcare (the most important component) and expires when obama’s term is up.
galefan2004
@Religion_Hurts: If your movement is to end the tolerance of gays and lesbians of their support of religion then I support you. However, 2000 years of strength is going to be harder to conquer than the political spectrum. Good luck trying to take down religion because it will never happen.
InExile
@SM: Oh, so Prop 8 is you claim to fame? Were you raising money in the 80’s to fight another proposition by Lindin La Rouch who wanted all HIV positive people or anyone suspected of being gay in California quarantined? Yea, I thought not!
You are just another brainwashed Obot! You think this man is you savior or the new coming of Christ. You consume yourself with blind faith that this man will do the right thing as he has promised. Well, looks like the jury is still out on that!
If the gay community does not hold this man to keep his promises, who will? Rush Limbaugh? Pat Robertson? Newt Gingrich? Who?
Thus far he has condensed his website changing the wording on DADT and in fact is not moving forward on repealing it. He has taken DOMA repeal completely off his website and even defended it in court with very offensive language. Our issues have not been mentioned directly by him since he was sworn in.
Is this “change we can believe in”, I think not!
galefan2004
@TANK: But dude, it doesn’t expire if we never let Obama leave office. Elect Obama to a second term or you remove the rights of gays and lesbians that they got under Clinton. Change the law to remove term limits and put Obama in for a third term or you remove rights of gays and lesbians that they got under Clinton. All this is is a political strategy that Obama will throw in our faces in 2012.
TANK
One really big problem with the executive (given the money literally thrown away to achieve the office) is the term limits. It should be four years, new president. Then, at least we’d get politicians who don’t spend their first term as president getting reelected.
Prof. Donald Gaudard
@SM: So, straight man, if we’re all idiots who do nothing (except get 6 states to enact gay marriage laws, for example), then what the hell are you doing on OUR web site?
Anthony in Nashville
Is SM a frequent poster? I don’t recall seeing that name on here, and I’m not sure why you are throwing so much shade. Just as you have accused him/her of not knowing what we have gone through, how do you know what he/she has done on behalf of gays?
I think this person has a point in that many gays and lesbians (especially gays) seem to think that change is supposed to happen instantaneously. From what I have seen from local LGBT organizations, there is a lack of desire to get involved by a lot of people in the “community.”
edgyguy1426
yeah, that’s what I don’t understand… and on our website like ALWAYS….calling us idiots for disagreeing with Admin policy. I think you’re doing your brother a grave disservice here by dissing those of us that are also fighting for his civil rights. Show your posts to your brother. Helping is one thing but I think you’re zealotry had affected your sanity. We don’t want anything less for your brother than you want for him yourself.
Really had enough bashing and berating from the straight community on the OUTSIDE of this forum- we shouldn’t have to put up with it here.
edgyguy1426
@Anthony in Nashville: frequent? Look at any political post here. We know what he/she has done on behalf of gays be cause he/she never fails to tell us in almost every post.
I can see where local LGBT communities might be harder to move in states like Tenn. GLBT local leaders (good ones are hard to find)
If this person has a point, fine, and I think at the beginning he/she DID have a point BUT it devolved into the worst name–calling as is evidenced in another post:
SM-@Vanhattan:
You are the ass…idiot.
I had a front seat view for Prop 8 in Orange County and I campaigned harder for gay rights in areas where you all are not liked than gay people did. The gay community blew it the fuck off.
Fucking idiots like you are why I wont do it again.
Matt
@SM: People like you seriously piss me off. I worked hard for Obama. I knocked on doors, raised some serious cash, registered voters, pleaded with red-state friends during the primaries and purple-state ones for the general….honestly, it was the first time I’d ever done anything more than just vote.
I spent much of Obama’s first 100 days urging patience, and then for weeks after that, too. But the events of the past week have been too much. I feel betrayed. Even worse, I feel like all those people I encouraged to vote for Obama, all my gay friends I counseled patience to, I feel like I betrayed them.
There comes a time when you just have to say enough is enough. For me, now is that time.
Also, John Berry = Uncle Tom (of Finland)
PS- Looking to vent your anger? Why not give cash to Dems that annoy Obama by primarying his chosen pols? Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak and New York’s Carolyn Maloney can knock off Arlen “fake Dem” Specter and Kirsten “Tobacco & Guns” Gillibrand.
prissysissy
People who spend their times arguing with nameless faceless strangers on line need to get their heads checked.
And if your political opinions are modulated by the posts on overt/covert agenda-driven blogs like this then you are seriously lacking in gray matter.
Queerty is an amusing diversion from the serious matters of life – just take anything here with a large dose of salt.
MdKer
I get the horrible image of all them Obamabots with eyeliner running down thier faces screaming…. Leave Obama alone.. Just leave him alone.
On a more serious note though they scare me a little more than that 32 percent that worshiped GB. And I have no illusions that they could become even more destructive.
schlukitz
@prissysissy:
“just take anything here with a large dose of salt.”
Shall we apply that logic to your commentary as well? ;P
SM
@MdKer:
What a joke
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/a-clockwork-orange/movie-fixation-with-oc-favorit/
schlukitz
@SM:
“Here again you know nothing. I have walked a mile in your shoes…idiot.”
How cavalier. How condescending. How arrogantly patronizing. But most appalling of all, is your utterly cruel and heartless and apparent lack of empathy for those who are in pain and suffering due to circumstances beyound their control and that are not of their making.
“Walked a mile in your shoes…idiot”
This sort of detached, crass, disdainful and insulting type of comment, from a straight person who calls himself a gay ally, is supposed to make us drop to our knees in adoration and kiss your ass as a show of our love and undying appreciation? Get yourself to the library and pick up a copy of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, dude.
Since arriving on this site, you have done nothing but paint yourself as an unappreciated martyr who has given his all for “you people” and who now feels that he is not receiving the acknowledgement and the overflowing bushel basket full of thanks you believe you have coming and so ardently crave.
Obviously, you have never heard of the expression “Goodness is it’s own best reward.” It means simply doing something because it is the right thing to do and that makes one feel good. If you’re just doing it because you crave attention and adulation, then perhaps you might try the Roman Catholic Priesthood where they makes Saints of back-slapping, self-patronizing folks just like you.
But, most insulting of all, is your bloated ego that you flaunt on these threads by telling us, the age-long victims of bigotry, hatred, discrimination and blatant homophobia, that we are not doing enough to help ourselves, ergo, why should Obama or anyone else try to help us ingrates? What colossal hubris? The chutzpah? You got a big fucking pair of cahoonies, pal.
What do you know of anyone’s suffering, least of all, InExhile’s?
You don’t even know this man and all you an do is insult the shit out of him? He treated you with respect and dignity and took the time and the trouble to ask you fair questions, which you obviously chose to side-step and ignore, which is the modus-operandi of self-aggrandized, attention-seeking-whores like you.
He never called you an idiot, made any demeaning slurs or delivered any derogatory comments toward you, as you have seen fit to do with him, as well as other posters on this site. You seem to take keen delight in attacking anyone who disagrees with you or your God-figure, Mr. Obama.
It is not InExile who does not know anything. It is you who does not know anything because if you did, you would have been able to answer his questions with knowledgeable, meaningful and concise answers that we might been able to understand and accept, instead of just coming back with a slur, which seems to be the only method of communication that you are capable of.
You may, indeed, have walked a mile in another man’s shoes, but it’s obvious from the piles of steamign hot dung you deposit onto these threads, that you are just going around in circles and have learned nothing at all from your involvement with the LGBT community.
You, Sir, are an epic fail.