grand gestures

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.

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