How Much Kudos Does Obama Deserve For Inviting Florida’s Gay Adoption Family Over For Easter?
Oh Jesus Christ. Just because Barack Obama invites Martin Gill — the star of a gay adoption case snaking through Florida’s courts — to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll doesn’t mean he’s making a “major show of support,” as NBC Miami puts it, or that “the Obama administration has definitely sent a message to the state of Florida: you’re hurting children by preventing LGBT folks from adopting” as Change.org’s Michael A. Jones puts it, or that Obama is delivering “a pretty strong statement” as Gill himself puts it. What the White House did by inviting Gill and his family was show that his advisers are very adept at manipulating messaging.
Gill is right to feel “extremely gratif[ied]” by the invite. We don’t mean to take away any of the warm fuzzies he and his kids will feel taking part in today’s Easter Egg Roll. Perhaps they got a chance to meet the Glee cast and Ellen DeGeneres’ mom. Seriously: This is a very nice thing the White House did, to single out a family going through such a rough time, and welcome them into America’s home at at event meant to celebrate kids.
But if President Barack Obama wants to make a “major show of support” or intends to “send a message to the state of Florida,” President Barack Obama will actually do just that. He has an entire Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, which he just beefed up and isn’t afraid to use. If he’s intent on ensuring gay families have every right to raise non-biological children as their own, he’ll sic his attack dogs on the State Of Florida. Until then, what he did was invite a gay family over for eggs and candy, and nothing more.
While a picture may say a thousand words, actions speak louder than photo ops.
This is the second year, and of course it’s important for the Obamas to make a point of including gay families. Why? To show that the first family publicly supports gay families and is willing to publicly recognize that they are, in fact, families. Something a good deal of the nation (and most of the world) resists.
And you can talk all you like about adoption rights action and attack dogs, but for now it’s state by state. This is how public opinion gets moved to a new consensus. Show a little thanks.
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Really Queerty, cut Obama some fucking slack.
Who needs federal protections from being fired based on sexual orientation, the ability to serve openly in the military, or a repeal of DOMA?
We get to roll Easter eggs! At the White House!
Gawd, isn’t that good enough for you negative nancys?
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Was this family INVITED to the White House for Easter fun, or *nominated* by a committee and then *accepted* on the guest list? Based on what I thought I heard on the radio , it wasn’t a specific invitation by the White house.
Either way, it was a nice gesture & sure 2 have enraged at least a few Teapartiers!
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Obama sold us out long ago! He does not care about gays but he uses us. I voted for him but never again. Under his watch he is destroying the middle class and our favorite bear has been all over him:
http://americaspeaksink.com/20.....mment-4985
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wow, what a fucked up perspective. i don’t blindly follow obama, but i do think he has done the most of any president we’ve EVER had to communicate messages of gay/lesbian (ok, trans issues, maybe not so much — i suppose it remains too politically “risky”) acceptance. this is something the bitchy new voice of queerty consistently refuses to recognize. sure, i value the politics of your effort: you are demanding full acceptance and full rights, and you are refusing to be satisfied with anything that compromises and only goes “halfway.” however, i think your political strategy continually blinds you to the real, and valuable, efforts this administration has achieved: namely, a considerably recognition of the legitimate, and valuable, presence of gays and lesbians in our culture. maybe i am not demanding enough of the administration, but having experienced years of Bush/Cheney, i see these things as positive developments.
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More whining excuses from Obots.
Obama has done nothing of substance for us except to sign the tepid Hate Crimes Bill.
That’s more than offset by his continued and deliberate hostility to our legal challenges to B. Clinton’s DOMA and DADT, all of which feature the use of vile bigoted justifications. Since day one Obama has been in bed with the religious right and he went out of his way to sabotage of our efforts to beat back Prop 8 with his rancid comment that same sex marriage was bad because “gawd’s in the mix.”
If he were on our side he’d strong arm Congress into passing ENDA and repealing B. Clinton’s bitter legacy of bigotry – DADT and DOMA. He did for the insurance companies with his fake health care bill. But he won’t do it for us because he panders to the christer bigot vote.
And if he wants’ to make a gesture he could declare that the US will open its arms to LGBT refugees from Iraq, where US puppet troops and police are murdering us without letup and from Uganda where US trained bigots are proposing a ‘legal’ pogrom against us that could leave thousands dead.
That’ll do a lot more than passing out a few dried out eggs.
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I think most of us can be mature enough to recognize positive steps forward, no matter how miniscule, tepid or uninspiring. On the other hand, we do have the right to be repulsed by Obama’s limitless hypocracy and empty rhetoric of hope. Just as we can publicly argue for LGBTs to be married and join the military while privately acknowledging that such folks are too conventional and tedious for words.
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Ugh. Disgusting.
Stop using terms like obama bots and apologists to describe people you’ve never met or spoken to. Its dismissive and divisive. It alienates people who don’t share your perspective but who may share a common goal. Every time someone is maligned for showing any support for Obama in the comments, it makes me less willing to work with gays on advancing our rights because I don’t want to work side by side with such hateful people. Imagine how many middle of the road independents or even closeted homosexuals refuse to support this cause because vocal gays will attack anyone that doesn’t see things their way.
I mean really, whats the point of attacking someone here? What gives you the right to become gay bashers?
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@Yet Another:Quit whining.
Obama, irrespective of his personal beliefs, is a functional bigot. Those who voted for him, especially Obots, blundered badly, giving us a Clinton Clone (DOMA, DADT) or Bushlite. The verdict on how bad he’ll be for us is still up in the air.
Before the election he held a series of cult revivals/rallies featuring a rancid pentecostal ‘ex-gay’ bigot named Donnie McClurkin. Then Obama appointed another ordained anti-same sex marriage pentecostal, Josh Dubois, to head up his pandering effort to attract bigots to his campaign. (Dubois was so successful he’s been appointed head of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to oversee using federal money to bribe pulpit pimps, just as Rove did for Bush2.
Obama retained yet a third ordained, pentecostal anti-same sex marriage bigot named Leah Daughtry to head up the DNC. Daughtry uses DNC money, your money if you donated to the Democrats, to fund anti-gay and anti-choice propaganda by christer cult groups. (Later Obama appointed a rancid bigot, the former Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, to supervise Daughtry. While not a pentecostal minister Kaine is a rightwing Dixiecrat opposed to choice and to GLBT equality.)
Then Obama ordered all mention of the LGBT agenda excised from the Democrat platform, to avoid giving anyone the impression that Democrats were pro-GLBT. As if.
Then Dubois set up a campaign debate with McCain at southern baptist Rick Warrens bigot fest in Orange County California shortly before the critical vote on Prop 8. Obama galvanized the bigot vote by declaring his opposition to same sex marriage because ‘gawd’s in the mix”. The polls reversed and the bigots came out in droves to impose Prop 8 on us and stop samne sex marriages.
Then people like you voted for him.
Since then he’s repaid Warren with a spot at the Inaugural.
He’s defended Clintons’ legacy of bigotry using vile languages and lies.
He refuses to expend any energy pushing our agenda in Congress.
But, hey, he did give us easter eggs two years in a row. That has to count for something, and does – if you’re eight years old. We expect adults to look at the broader picture though.
Gay bashing is what Obama and other Democrats and Republicans do. Criticizing homosexual gentlemen who are in the last closet, the political closet is what we do when we say Obot or jump on Log Cabin and GOProud types.
They’re not the same thing at all, so quit whining.
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The other option on the ballot was Mccain. In 2012 God forbid it may be some Republican with a VP teabagger. Let’s just remind ourselves politics aside we have made huge strides to equality. For goodness sakes we just had a flurry of support from officials in the armed forces to repeal DADT, do you think that level of frankness would happen under a Bush or Mccain? Politics is NOT about was is up-front and center but what happens in backrooms; ask Pelosi.
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A: excuse typo’s them like s@#t happens
B: not a big fan of turning everything about our struggle
C: sometimes, though it may be manipulative, making someone happy doesn’t need to be about our fight
D: that said: if I agreed with most blogs I’d be a teabagger
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I agree with a lot of what Alex wrote. Just how much better do some of you think the GLBT community would we be with McCain and Palin in office pandering to the right? Would there be any hope at all except the hope that McCain lived out his term? A President advocating repeal of DADT is far better than one who threatens repeal with a veto. An administration appointing openly Gay and Lesbian people to positions leading agencies is moving in a positive direction for us. I have not heard anything positive about anything pertaining to GLBT interests from the political right. It was a Republican Senator who held up the appointment of Chai Feldblum, one of Obama’s recess appointments to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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Um, gay people showed up for the Easter Egg Roll even when Bush was doing it. So having a gay couple there is meaningless when it comes to an Administration showing any support of gay rights.