Because you already know where President Obama stands. And that would be against same-sex marriage. Thanks for the reminder, Gibbs!
Mute
Obama Has Nothing to Say About Prop 8
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Synnerman
Politics first always politics first, at least until we RIOT or do something to show that we mean actual business.
Talk is cheap.
InExile
And here we are! I hope none of you continue to send this guy ANY money! Guess he couldn’t care less!
Virilene
What a cowardly administration. I wonder what his mother would think.
WPM
Can we get our Obama campaign donations back now?
VotedForHillary
And to think that SOOOOO many people were screaming nasty nasty names like “racist” at ANYONE who had the balls to point out during the primary race that Obama’s friendships with anti gay bigots like Donnie McClurkin should be a red flag to everyone. Oh but NO. Way Way Way too many gay folks drank the Obama kool-aide. They swallowed hook, line and sinker with a smile.
Who is sorry now?
InExile
@WPM: Yes, we should all write our credit card companies and dispute the donations!
InExile
@VotedForHillary: Yes, who is sorry now?
Michael
QUOTE: “It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS in this nation. And I ASK FOR YOUR SUPPORT IN THIS ELECTION so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans. I WILL NEVER COMPROMISE ON MY COMMITMENT TO EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL LGBT AMERICANS. As your President, I WILL USE THE BULLY PULPIT to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. Americans are YEARNING FOR LEADERSHIP that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, WE NEED LEADERSHIP that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. JOIN WITH ME, AND I WILL PROVIDE THAT LEADERSHIP. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.” – Barack Obama, February 2008
I WILL NEVER COMPROMISE ON MY COMMITMENT TO EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL LGBT AMERICANS.
I WILL PROVIDE THAT LEADERSHIP.
I WILL NEVER COMPROMISE ON MY COMMITMENT TO EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL LGBT AMERICANS.
I WILL PROVIDE THAT LEADERSHIP.
[img]http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2009/05/21/mn-waxobama22_ph_0500176108.jpg[/img]
Kenny Jacobs
I’ve given up thinking Queerty writers have a clue about this issue. It was candidate Obama who provided a letter AGAINST Prop. 8 during the campaign. He was opposed to Prop. 8. Move on to models or pop music or something you are reasonably qualified to write about.
rafa
@Synnerman:
Appropriate quote from Dr. King:
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Thom Freeheart
To all those people who attacked me for warning them of Obama’s BS: I told you so.
Oh, and you owe me an apology.
Michael
@Kenny Jacobs:
And it was candidate Obama who provided a “God is in the mix” condemnation of marriage equality … a recording of which was used in robo calls to millions of voters by the H8TERS.
bryce
this was a bs response from gibbs. regardless of if obama believes in same sex marriage, regardless of how he plays the issue as a political one, today’s ruling in california is not a direct decision on same sex marriage. we do NOT know how obama feels about the issues that the supreme court of california addressed in their decision today. gibbs blew off the question, and he should be asked about it again tomorrow, more aggressively, after he has had the chance to talk to obama about it.
mark daniel snyder
@VotedForHillary: Well i voted for obama out of solidarity with the labor and other movements supporting him, but I knew on issues like these and on issues of war and environment, really all of the issues he would not go far enough for me. We need to keep organizing on the ground.
paulied
I want Anna Marie Cox to ask Gibbs this question tomorrow and not let get away with this bullshit answer!
wondermann
Kenny Jacobs, you have to remember some of the folks are a lost cause. This is not an Obama issue, so stop trying to make it one.
hephaestion
No, Blobbert Gibbs, I DON’T know where the President stands on “those issues.” TELL US, you homophobic motherfucker.
Don’t make me get nostalgic for the Bush administration. At least they were HONEST about wanting us to remain second-class citizens forvever. Our issues are not rocket science. They are simple justice. JUSTICE. You are either for it or against it.
Does Obama have ANY idea how outraged the gay community is right now? If he doesn’t act on DADT or DOMA soon, he could loose our support BIG TIME and FOREVER.
Terrence
mmhm if he was still picking cotton, he’d have plenty to say.
Dave
@InExile: I completely agree. And here I was hated by the OBAMA freaks when I expressed legitimate concerns about his unproven and empty political history. It should have been Hillary in that seat. She can keep my donations.
Peter
My guess is that President Obama may be waiting until another Senator is installed along with a new Supreme Court Justice before he makes a move. “Do not go out on a limb while there is someone below you with a sharp saw.”
Jack
Unless he speaks out against this in the next 24 hours, Mr. Obama will guarantee that my vote goes to a different candidate next time. I think he is doing a wonderful- and progressive- job on many issues but Silence = Death on matters of gay civil rights and I can not tolerate it. I have no man in my life so marriage is not on the horizon. I have gone well beyond the age when I would be considered of use to our military. I have been fortunate to not be the victim of anti-gay violence. BUT…I cannot bear to see the suffering and discrimination imposed on my brothers and sisters and I will not accept it on myself in the future. I vow to actively resist my subjugation and to fight for the equality that is my right as a creature of God and a citizen of this country. I am a gay American and I am proud of who I am and I demand justice.
Jim
@VotedForHillary: YUP. We got what we voted for. He has no love for us – just our votes and money. Something he will never get from me again.
Jim
@wondermann: It is not an Obama issue becasue he is too chickensh!t to make it his issue AS HE PROMISED.
mikeincleveland
hillary wasn’t for gay marriage either- gang…
i agree with ej dionne- this was the last democratic president that would NOT be for gay marriage
the older generation is dying off- the ones that don’t want change- they7 want things to be like they were in 1950 when they were kids
unfortunately, up until this time (barely) they held too much voting sway over who got elected
now they’re dying off
the last of archie bunker’s generation
just relax gang… things are changing- what the Cali Supreme’s did was just about what we expected them to do
unlike the Civil Rights Act of 1965, this will be a states issue through one more election cycle (2012) and then it will collapse with the Congress finally putting gay marriage into law once they realize that the majority of them will lose their jobs unless they vote YES.
jason
Robert Gibbs is Obama’s useful idiot.
Typical Democratic Party dishonesty is what we’re seeing.
InExile
Today when my partner of 14 years and I got the news on the Prop 8 ruling it was a very sad time. Many of our friends got married in Los Angeles and we are glad they can stay married! For us, we were advised not to fly back home to LA to get married because if we had gotten married it would show intent to stay for my French born partner which is grounds for being deported.
Today is a very sad day for all of us but for those of us living “In Exile” in other countries it is even more devastating because rulings like this destroys our hope to have our life back that we lost and long to rebuild.
I am an American citizen and it is my right to love the person I choose to love, it is not the governments choice!
Our rights have been trampled once again today but we can change all of this if we DEMAND CHANGE. I mean we must quit asking and DEMAND FULL EQUALITY, it is our right as American citizens.
rapport
Come on, you can’t hit Obama every time he doesn’t act for gay rights. He is a politician you know. Making such a big deal out of it actually works against gay people.
jason
InExile,
I can understand your disappointment.
My own disappointment is with the gay community itself. It’s become a community built on a sex act. I can guarantee you that you’ll get more men turning up at bars and clubs in search of orgasms than out on the streets protesting Prop 8.
Chuck
California Counties should go ahead and allow gay marriage in the ones that voted prop 8 down. This would allow marriage equality in all of the Bay Area from Humboldt County to Monterey County, over half the total coast, and also Santa Barbara.
Check this out:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-2008election-prop8prop22,0,6153805.htmlstory
This also illustrated the very important work in L.A., where prop 8 narrowly passed. Orange County and San Diego aren’t any surprise. But West Hollywood’s mission is clear. Hollywood Celebs should lend a hand in this travesty literally in their back yard.
Lance Rockland
@jason: An orgasm is a HELL of a lot more satisfying than protesting anything.
Uh…what was the discussion about again? 😉
James
“I have not talked to the President about it….you know where he stands”…..for CIVIL UNIONS….not MARRIAGE. Just like Miss California.
Gays were suckers for voting and promoting this never done anything.
rick
the right has reduced marriage to PERMISSION TO HAVE SEX AND GET PREGNANT GRANTED BY A RELIGIOUS ENTITY. that is what they REALLY mean by traditional.
as a 51 year old gay person i must say that if civil unions offer all the same rights and benefits, then gays should take them. during my lifetime one by one of the anti gay laws have fallen. this too shall fall but i would take any rights i could get and forget about the stupid title.
gays can do all the same things with a civil union in regards to celebrations etc. in europe ALL marriages are civil unions that require going to the court house and then having a church service. let the bigots have their word. we all know what they claim to be tradition and history is nothing but a flat out lie, but, that is what they are good at, lying.
Jim
Why aren’t we taking a page from the other side’s playbook and starting to recall the supremes who voted for this? Didn’t they just totally throw out the equal protection clause and open the door to any majority whim? Do we really want THESE people on the bench?
jason
Civil unions are not the same as civil marriage.
The Gay Numbers
There’s now going to be a federal challenge to Prop 8 under 14th Amendment:
“Theodore B. Olson and David Boies have filed a U.S. District Court lawsuit on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that the California constitutional amendment eliminating the right of gay couples to marry violates the U.S. constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process.”
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid86253.asp
Attmay
@VotedForHillary: I knew from day one that Obama was nothing more than a political opportunist.
I say we hold our noses and join with the GOP to bring Obama down unless we see action.
mb00
Why would he have anything to say? He’s already gotten what he needed from us, he got our votes, we helped him get elected, he’s moved on. He hit us like a one night stand, he had his way with us and now isn’t calling back. We’ll just know who not back up in four years.
Hector Levarrio
After reviewing what has happened in the Netherlands I am offering my opinion. In my judgment, it is difficult to imagine that a lengthy, highly visible, and ultimately successful campaign to persuade Dutch citizens that marriage is not connected to parenthood and that marriage and cohabitation are equally valid ‘lifestyle choices’ has not been without serious social consequences….
There are undoubtedly other factors that have contributed to the decline of the institution of marriage in our country. Further scientific research is needed to establish the relative importance of all these factors. At the same time, we wish to note that enough evidence of marital decline already exists to raise serious concerns about the wisdom of the efforts to deconstruct marriage in its traditional form. But the deeper point is that the meaning of traditional marriage was transformed every bit as much by the decade-long national movement for gay marriage in Holland as by eventual legal success. That’s why the impact of gay marriage on declining Dutch marriage rates and rising out-of-wedlock birthrates begins well before the actual legal changes were instituted. The recent statement by five Dutch scholars takes exactly that position.when you have ‘rising out of wedlock birthrates’ then guess what happens? more crime, more drugs, more gangs…a dysfunctional community, as we have seen in the black community.
you on the other hand, have no evidence that gay marriage has a positive effect upon society in any manner…its all about the greed of the gays to enforce their views upon others….and at the same time limiting the religious freedom, and freedom of speech, of those who disagree.
The Gay Numbers
God, there should be a bug spray called wingnut-begone. I would buy it for this site.
DeAnimator
Why is anyone surprised? He’s a politician. Plain and simple.
mb00
@Hector Levarrio: shut the fuck up…how’s for freedom of speech.
You can hide behind the idea that “gay marriage has no positive effects on society”, but you can’t hide behind the divorce rate statistics of heterosexual marriages, that is at least 50% of straight marriages end up in divorce.
So don’t tell us that we have no positive impact on society when you yourselves can’t even keep it together half the time.
So tell us, what positive effect does divorce have on society?
schlukitz
All points bulletin.
Sock puppet on the loose. Goes by the alias of Hector Levarrio.
Uses many intellectual disguises to hide his true identity.
Is armed with five Dutch scholar’s homophobic takes and should be considered extremely dangerous.
Anyone having information on the whereabouts of this fugitive of civil rights should contact their local sheriff, police department or the FBI without delay.
TANK
@schlukitz:
SO wouldn’t that be pseudo intellectual disguises? Goddamn, it’s a gift.
andy
I know I’m not getting my 2000 dollar donation back from his campaign, but I do know that I will NOT give another cent to the DEMOCRATS again until I see action on this ISSUE.
alejandro
obama is stil great. i dont know why everyone’s freaking out. his position on this was always known. i stil think he was a better choice than mccain……………
schlukitz
@TANK:
I stand corrected.
A doff of the hat to you, Sir. ;P
michael
What a day its been here in Vancouver. My phone and e-mail immediately started flooding. I have done 4 media interviews and was on a radio show for CBC. My husband also did a radio interview and we both spoke at a rally held here against prop. 8. It has amazed me the outpouring of support, the concern and the love of Canadians here in Vancouver in regards to this issue. And they are also Godsmacked at Obama’s lack of action and silence. The world is learning what you in America already are experiencing about Obama. George Bush was not a disappointment, as we knew exactly what a nightmare he was, but Obama we had high hopes. He has escalated the troops in the middle east. He has upheld indefinite incarceration of “suspects”, He is complacent at best in regards to human rights. He courts hateful men like Rick Warren into his fold. What a sad lesson America and the world is learning here.
Buffy
We didn’t vote for him. He’s not our president.
Hector,
Go spew your Paul Cameron crap somewhere else.
Mark
For all of you Obama haters who are swearing that Hillary should have been our president because of this one issue, I say fuck you.
Why do I say that? It’s easy. First, foe all of you haters out there easily swayed by rhetoric, you’re not much better than fundie Christians.
And, YOU weren’t in the audience in Hollywood listening to her when every single one of the Dem candidates were interviewed on LOGO. I listened to each and every one of the candidates – LIVE and IN THE AUDIENCE – and heard Hillary tell us that our fight ‘has not gone on long enough’. Her words were specific and to the point. SHE WAS NOT ON OUR SIDE THEN. SHE WAS N.O.T. She made it as plain as she could that she could not champion our issues for us because she is NOT THE DIVA YOU THINK SHE IS. Hillary was and still is Ms. Triangulation. She thinks strategically and politically at all times. She is not and will never be part of our foundation for civil rights.
It was during that televised event that I was very clear that if Hillary occupied the WH, she would NOT be backing our issues because we’ve ‘not struggled long enough’. <— HER OWN WORDS.
Now, go back and listen to that interview and tell me how you can honestly say she should be our president.
You can’t. Unless you value your own beliefs over what she actually said to a roomful of gays and lesbians, and to the televised audience.
jason
I never thought I’d see the day when Theodore B Olson would be fighting on our behalf while Obama remains silent.
Can we have our vote back, Barack?
Mark
What’s amazing is that none of you nimwits realize that you’re the problem. Grow up. Stop being victims. Own your own destiny.
Mark
This self proclaimed “fierce advocate for civil rights” is silent once again on a historic and important decision that discriminates boldly against our community and our children by way of a Constitutional amendment that shamelessly invalidates our protection from the majority. It’s an outrage! President Obama is on the wrong side of this issue and history. He will slink over and take part of this movement when it’s safe. Disgusting.
Adolf Hitler
@Hector Levarrio:
“The recent statement by five Dutch scholars takes exactly that position.when you have ‘rising out of wedlock birthrates’ then guess what happens? more crime, more drugs, more gangs…a dysfunctional community, as we have seen in the black community.”
…the logical extension of your observations being that those awful, disgusting, sub-human, animalitic black people shouldn’t be allowed to marry either, right?
Thank you, Herr Hector. We understand you loud and clear.
InExile
@Mark: The fact remains, Hillary is strong and Obama is weak. That is a fact! Also Obama is religious, Hillary is not! So before you go out on a limb for Mr. SILENCE, take a look at all his religious entanglements and take a look at Hillary bringing equality to the state department. Hillary keeps her promises and so does her boss, to the religious right that is!
rigs
@InExile: I agree, Hillary would NOT have been for Marriage equality, but I do believe she would be TOUGH enough to take on the Military Brass on DADT and DOMA (since she kinda has with her State Dept. decision). She would have cherished the opportunity to wrong her husband’s mistakes I think AND she wouldn’t be as scared to piss of or alienate the right wing since she had not hope of uniting with them anyways. Obama is a wimp and is caving all over the place. Though I’m still glad he’s in there over McCain/Palin
Landon Bryce
How many are going to the rally in L.A. tonight to ask for Obama’s support for LGBT issues?
Jim
@Hector Levarrio: Hector you ignorant slut.
If the Netherlands is now having higher crime rate due to gay marriage as you spew – then why are they CLOSING prisons due to lack of criminals?
http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons_for_lack_of_criminals
Check your “facts” you bigoted asshole.
InExile
@Landon Bryce: Do you have information about the rally? I have not seen any???? I hope there really is one!
Alec
@InExile: Um, Hillary Clinton is very religious. She attended the senate prayer circle, she was a practicing United Methodist and she has been for, you know, decades.
The California Supreme Court did precisely what I thought it would do. It wasn’t even a close case.
Where are the starry eyed optimists, btw?
Jim
@Alec: Be that as it may – at least she has done what she said she would do. A far cry from BO. (maybe not on this topic but on DADT)
Alec
@Jim: I’m sure President Obama supports the State Department decision.
Or have we decided that cabinet officials are solely responsible for the management of their departments?
I agree that he is a disappointment on DADT.
strumpetwindsock
@Alec:
Though if a politician is truly ethical and takes his or her responsibilities seriously, religion is completely irrelevant.
Michael W.
@rigs: You’re living in a fantasy world.
I don’t know where people like you get the idea that Hillary was so willing to engage the right wing. She was out there talking that bipartisan bullshit just like Obama. If anything she’d built a more cozy relationship with the right through the years in DC than him, which was one of the points she loved talking up to combat the belief that Obama could do a better job at bipartisanship than her.
Hillary was only an enemy of the right when it came to playing defense. Let’s not forget that her top adviser wouldn’t be her chief of staff or any of her cabinet secretaries. It’d be none other than the great triangulator himself Slick Willy. She wasn’t trying to be some progressive hero in a cape. The same people who saw that in her are just as blind as those who wanted to see it in Obama.
Robert, NYC
@mb00:
You fucking idiot, and what if there were no same-sex marriage anywhere? You’re beginning to sound like that other asshole, Stepen R who makes the same statements on this site.
How do you account for the fact that divorce rates have been increasing since the 60s as well as illegitimate birth rates? Gay’s don’t influence straight adulterers let alone straight divorce rates, nor do they influence unwed mothers as you right wingers like to claim. The biggest threat to marriage is breeders like you. Ask religious bigots like Mel Gibson, the ever so catholic hypocrite who just knocked up his girlfriend (not yet divorced from his first wife) and all the other straight adulterers. Ask him if gays caused the breakup of his marriage.
Nicolas
Everyone was too busy cooing over Obama to really listen to his public opinions and read between the lines–he made a moral issue out of gay marriage and said marriage was between 1 man and 1 woman on many, many occasions. Why anyone is surprised by his silence now is beyond me.
You were all duped.
sparkle obama
girls, it sounds like for now, it’s come down to the use of the word, only (!?)
californians have the same rights we had in ’08
except it won’t be legally called “marriage” if you are same sex couples.
for the time being, the “tiny tots for christ” hold the copyright – but we do have Our rights, apparently.
did i get that wrong?
californians has the state’s blessing to create new legal unions to be afforded the same state rights as hetero married couples.
we have the legal right to refer to our “wives” & “husbands”, in fact.
ONLY USE OF THE WORD “MARRIAGE” IS CURRENTLY FORBIDDEN.
really, is that right?
that’s a pretty big step forward and a small, semantic step back.
spread the word, gladys kravitz.
you can get you rights!
the president isn’t going to stop you.
that’s Change you can sit on.
James
Obama said, “I’m a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”
michael
@James: and my religion says marriage is sanctified between 2 people who love each other. So why does obamas version win?
michael
@Hector Levarrio: Hey asshole, tell this shit to your local neo nazi group cause nobody on here is interested. Why do you waste your time you fucking sub-human primate? Nobody is going to debate you because no one here gives a shit about you to do that. You are unimportant, you don’t matter and nobody would call 911 if you were hit by a bus. Cause trash goes into the landfill where it is forgotten by everyone. Idiot stop wasting our time and your own.
getreal
Actually I was at The DNC fundraiser tonight at the Beverly Hilton during the President’s speech he said he could hear the activists outside chanting “Obama keep your promise” and he said to the audience “That’s fair”. He is going to act we just have to do the foot work to keep public opinion changing (it is changing at a rate of 8 point a month since the election. Why people thought he was going to draft the most important civil rights legislation in the first months of his Presidency I’m not sure but this is going to happen so let’s complain and organize. Not just sit on bar stools and blogs and bitch.
Michael W.
@getreal: Please. If the man had any real interest in gay rights, his administration wouldn’t have shown such glaring indifference thus far. Robert Gibbs does such a terrible job whenever we come up at press conferences, I really can’t even wrap my mind around it. We exist to him as nothing more than a nuisance, kids in the back of the minivan asking if we’re there yet.
He stopped and did his little acknowledgement of the protesters in that condescending manner he always does. I can see the look on his face now. “That’s fair” translates to shut the fuck up and let me continue speaking. Maybe if he acted halfway decent toward us instead of wishing us away like a drunken family member at a picnic, there wouldn’t be any people outside chanting in the first place. “That’s fair” allows him to write it all off with no acceptance of responsibility.
Robert, NYC
@James:
James, religion does NOT own marriage, that word didn’t even exist in the old testament and no religious “marriage” ceremony was performed between your idols Adam and Eve. Religion also does NOT own civil marriage and has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. The state issues marriage licenses, not religious cults, get it?
If you’re saying that “marriage” is only between one man and one woman, are you implying the procreation red herring to justify it? If you are, then you have to ban every straight childless married couple who can’t or won’t procreate and ban straights who marry after child bearing years. Religious cultists can’t have both ways, its either all or nothing, no cherry picking please. Keep your religious beliefs out of my civil beliefs and my right to FULL equality guaranteed by the constitution under the first ten amendments.
Robert, NYC
@sparkle obama:
Domestic partnerships and civil unions do NOT confer all of the 1324 rights and privileges that come with marriage. Where do you get off saying they are the same?
Robert, NYC
mboo……..my other comment was directed at shill Hector Levarrio, my apologies.
Robert, NYC
@michael:
Michael, exactly my sentiments. He’s another one of those shills who come in here to try and agitate. Makes you wonder why they keep coming here…prurient interest perhaps, probably some right wing closeted self-loathing log cabiner. Why doesn’t he go after the straight adulterers, the ones responsible for the rising divorce rates?
Robert, NYC
@mb00:
Mboo, my apologies to you in comments I made that were directed at Hector Levarrio. It was my error, thanks.