“[T]he problem here goes well beyond Warren’s incendiary language equating gay marriage with incest. He is what he is. The greater problem lies in the President-Elect’s cruel calculation that this insult and offense to gay America is acceptable collateral damage for whatever plus he sees in the suck-up to Warren, giving profile and platform to this mega-merchant of discrimination in the first program agenda item during the first official act of his first day in office.
I was one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration. His respect for gay Americans was evident even when setbacks and disappointments slowed the change agenda, and he certainly did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office to score points with opponents. Ordinary gay Americans will need to hold this new Administration to the tenets of its campaign and to the idealism of its Inaugural language – and to a fundamental expectation for respect. The Warren invitation remains a disgrace and a blemish on day one of the new Administration. Shame on Obama.” — An anonymous openly-gay former Clinton aide, simultaneously defending his old boss’s gay rights record and slamming Obama for inviting Rev. Rick Warren to Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News & World Report.
marco
Why anonymous?
Anarchos
Was Clinton’s respect for gay Americans evident when he signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, Mr. Anonymous coward?
L.
obama is no Clinton. He has already shown us that. I fear we gays are going to be marginalized and very disappointed in this administration.
Nick
The criticism is totally valid as it pertains to Obama. But Clinton was already backpedaling on gays-in-the-military by this point. Can someone explain why these people are more cautious in the White House than when running for it? Are we the mother load of campaign contributions?
rsquared
No, Clinton “did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office.” He waited a couple of years before signing the Defense of Marriage Act into law. Because of that action, no matter what the states might do to legalize gay marriage, federal law will not grant a foreign gay spouse the right to live legally in the U.S. with a U.S. citizen spouse. Please stop romanticizing Clinton’s white house years.
rsquared
…Oh, and as “one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration”, why are you anonymous now? Back in the closet, meh?
Michael W.
Obama could have Rick Warren write his speeches and it still wouldn’t be as offensive to us as the Defense Of Marriage Act. Not only Billy’s signature but the fact that he actually CAMPAIGNED FOR IT!
The nerve of this cowardly Clintonista attempting to rewrite history and make us think Slick Willie was in any way a friend to gays. That’s why I don’t care about token gay appointments, it clouds the judgment of people like him/her when legislation is what counts. And there’s been no more harmful legislation to gay Americans over the past two decades than DOMA. It makes Prop 8 look like a sunny day on the beach.
“obama is no clinton.” Is that a compliment or a diss? We’re still trying to get from under those Clinton/Gore ’96 campaign bus tires 13 years later and you’re upset cause Rick Warren said some mean things? LOL
The Gay Numbers
I am all for criticizing Obama regarding Warren.
But, this former Clinton aid reminds me of Melissa Etheridge’s recent aduration of Warren because Warren personally likes her.
It’s not the same in degree. Warren is obviously evil. Clinton is not.
But, let’s be clear here- Clinton, despite the apologists for him, did in fact push for and pass DOMA and DADT. There is no way around this.
Trying to say he personally liked gays is a complete irrelevance to the vast bulk of gay lives out there except the gays he liked.
This mind set – they personally like me so it’s okay that they hate the rest of you through their policies and symbolism- is not one that will produce better results for our rights.
Call them all out when they need to be called out, and stop making excuses.
Finally, can I say to the Clinton aide- stop being so damn narcissistic. You are not the center of the unverse. Gay rights should be. You lose all respect defending the undefendable because he likes you personally. Good for you- now tell that to all those couples affected by his laws.
mikeincleveland
ohhhhhh wait- what about when bill clinton called up kerry and told him to back the ohio defense of marriage act so he could win the election?
right right— clinton was always on our side. stupid me…
check with david mixner about that clinton gay record while you’re at it
as for warren- i think it’s a smart move- just with meeting with the conservative columnists the other night. the young evangelicals helped obama win. they’re less socially-driven than their older counterparts and the best way to get the GOP to stay stuck in the racist South is to take the future GOP moderate voters away from them. warren will get his due from us over the next few years, no doubt, because we know this guy’s true colors.
but obama coming out and saying that “don’t ask don’t tell” will be repealed is already doing as much as clinton did in the 8 years he was in office for us.
and he hasnt even taken office yet….
stop rose-tinting the clinton period and put that hillary for president sign finally away
PearlsBeforeSwine
@Nick:
“Are we the mother load of campaign contributions?”
I think this is like venture capitalism. The early money is the most important money. By taking a strong pro-gay position, a candidate can get gay and lesbian contributions to raise their profile. Later, they can back off on their support. This is what Howard Dean did. And looking at Barack Obama’s early pledges to support gay marriage, I would say he also fits this pattern. And perhaps Mitt Romney.
Leland Frances
#s and Predictable Obama Troll Michael W., please document from a mainstream media source exactly how and when Clinton “push[ed] for” and “campaigned for” federal DOMA.
He didn’t “pass” either DOMA or DADT because that’s the job of Congress. He did sign both which whether or not one agrees he had a strategic choice to refuse to sign it’s clear Congress would have overridden his veto.
And, in both cases, nothing was really taken away that we had before. From all the screeching one would think that, before DADT, gays were openly tiptoeing through the tulips of Tripoli hand in hand with straight Marines when, in fact, DADT only continued the ban on gays that began during WWII.
As for Queen Troll’s claim, “there’s been no more harmful legislation to gay Americans over the past two decades than DOMA. It makes Prop 8 look like a sunny day on the beach,” it makes the usual stupid things he writes look like rocket science.
Rsquared’s comment about the formal block it puts on naturalizing foreign born spouses of American citizens is correct, but such a right had never been recognized before and, contrary to the confusion of shallow fools like the Queen, in terms of the states, other than preventing gay spouse recognition relative to federal income tax and Social Security benefits—again, nothing we actually already had—federal DOMA did nothing more than affirm their “state’s right” to deny OR RECOGNIZE gay relationships for their own purposes. Contrary to the delusions of many [regularly fed by the Obama campaign], federal DOMA does NOT prevent states from recognizing such relationships if they want to. If it did, states would have not felt the need to continue to pass their own DOMAs and state constitutional amendments.
Quickly buried beneath all the hosannas to the New Messiah were the comments by Obama’s Constitutional law professor and campaign advisor Lawrence Tribe post the LOGO candidates forum:
“Obama believes states should be under no obligation to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. He wants to fully repeal DOMA, however’, in the words of Tribe. Obama believes a long-recognized public policy exception to the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause exempts a state from having to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state which runs counter to its own public policies. [Tribe said] ‘Same-sex couples in Massachusetts are neither better nor worse off with DOMA repealed except that the repeal of DOMA is a way of telling that couple that their marriage in Massachusetts is not going to be made the subject of a symbolic and ineffectual slam by the federal government.” – http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3468949&page=2
As fro what President Clinton did get right, hanks to him, gay executive branch employees were protected for the first time by an executive order he issued [and the Bush Reich immediately ignored upon taking office].
Thanks to President Clinton there was “a total revamping of the security clearance process that ended the ‘special procedures’ under which gay people were frequently delayed or denied on security clearances, a real problem for people in technology occupations working for government contractors.†[gay historian Arthur Leonard]
Thanks to President Clinton James Hormel became the first openly gay ambassador.
Thanks to President Clinton Bob Farmer became the first out gay U.S. consul general.
Thanks to President Clinton America saw the first openly gay federal judge, Deborah Batts.
Thanks to President Clinton America saw the first openly gay people occupying positions requiring Senate confirmation such as Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Roberta Achtenberg whom Jesse Helms publicly denounced as “that damn lesbian.â€
Thanks to President Clinton America saw the first out gays in senior White House staff positions.
Thanks to President Clinton, “we got a major advance on asylum policy when Janet Reno adopted as official precedent a decision that gays are a ‘distinct social group’ for purposes of analyzing eligibility for political asylum in the US for people from oppressive countries.â€
Thanks to President Clinton’s appointments to the US Supreme Court we got our first major Supreme Court victory, Romer v. Evans, overturning Colorado’s antigay law; “Lawrence v. Texas†negated all sodomy laws; and the Boy Scouts’s ban on gays was nearly overturned.
President Clinton was the first President to meet with gay activists in the White House.
And, oh yeah, he didn’t have anyone who’d equated gay marriage with incest and child molestation praying at his Inauguration.
Nick
I think this is a right one statement. And for the Clinton bashers here I have to say you need to go back and look at what was happening politically back then. My sense is that Clinton is actual more comfortable and more pro gay then Obama and certainly he didn’t play politics with us before he ever got elected. I agree totally with what anonymous is saying and it’s nice to know that I am not alone in still feeling this way about Obama and the Warren decision.
Bottom line is that every hates fags and it’s still in this country OK to hate fags. So being a fag lover will cost you votes.
Cam
talk about being ridiculous. Sure, I’m annoyed with Obama’s invitation, but not HALF as angry as I still am at the Clinton Administration for signing DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. This guy needs to take a dose of reality. Clinton sacrificed the gay community for political expediency. Additionally, #12 Nick who says we need to take a look at what was going on politically at the time needs to remember one thing, during his second term, Clinton didn’t have to run again so there was no political risk for him in helping us….which he didn’t.
24play
Please, spare us the delusions of anonymous Clinton dead-enders.
blake
@Nick:
No, gays were not the biggest contributors to Obama’s campaign. That’s obvious given that the majority of Obama’s campaign contributions were from individual donors across many constituencies.
Sadly, gay Americans were the only voter bloc to show a decrease in support of a Democratic candidate from the 2004 presidential election to the 2008 presidential election. All other voting blocs (Latino, Asian, African Americans, Native Americans, white Americans, and women,) voted in higher numbers for Obama. That means gays potentially have less leverage, especially if the criticism is unending.
Also, this anonymous Clintonista is a hot mess of stink. While Bill Clinton may have been pushed into DADT, he supported DOMA and told John Kerry to come out against gay marriage.
http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/bill-clinton-reportedly-told-john-kerry.html
Could it be that this Clintonista is upset that he/she wasn’t one of the gay former Clinton supporters Obama selected for a job?
seitan-on-a-stick
Was it Keith Boykin? Sources tell me “YES!”
blake
Former Clinton insider and gay activist David Mixner had this to say about Bill Clinton and DOMA:
“First, [Hillary] Clinton’s claim that DOMA was passed so it could help defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) eight years later is absolutely false. As we all know, the FMA wasn’t really a threat until 2002, and the two pieces of legislation had distinctly separate origins. While having DOMA on the books might have been a factor in the FMA’s defeat, it was passed for political reasons in an election year. In fact, after proclaiming to the community how painful it was for him to sign it, President Clinton’s reelection campaign had ads up in the South touting the legislation within two weeks!”
http://www.tinmanic.com/archives/2008/03/25/student-challenges-bill-clinton-on-doma/
Bill Clinton ran radio ads on conservative talk radio:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E5DB1731F936A25753C1A960958260
“In October 1996, the Times reported on a Clinton ad touting the fact that he signed DOMA:
In a radio advertisement aimed at religious conservatives, the Clinton campaign is showcasing the President’s signature on a bill banning gay marriages in spite of earlier White House complaints that the issue amounted to â€gay baiting.â€â€¦
Mr. Clinton signed the law early on a Saturday morning, minimizing news coverage. He said he had long agreed with the principles in the bill but hoped it would not be used to justify discrimination against homosexuals…
The Dole campaign was critical. â€This is a President who signed the Defense of Marriage Act in the middle of the night so it wouldn’t be news, but now he does paid advertising to promote it,†said a Dole spokesman, Gary Koops. â€This is a President who has never supported any restriction on abortion, but now, 20-plus days before the election, he does ads touting the fact that he now says he supports restrictions.†”
For more on Bill Clinton and DOMA, see this links:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4887
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/the-clintons–2.html
Bottom line:
Bill Clinton was happy to sign DOMA. So, spare us the unblinking fawning over Bill Clinton. In general, Clinton was a good president but he was not the “bestest,” sweetest, kindest, and most wonderful buddy of GLBT Americans. He was happy to screw over allies to win votes. He did this with African-Americans and gays. Those are facts.
P.S.
As everyone knows, Bill Clinton threw African-Americans under the bus prior to his election when he cynically condemned an obscure rapper named Sistah Souljah in an effort to appeal to racist, anti-black voters.
PearlsBeforeSwine
@Cam:
There are those who think if Bill Clinton had not embraced DOMA by signing it we would have gotten something much worse – an amendment to the US Constitution outlawing gay marriage. When you consider how many states have passed similar laws or amended their state constitutions to do this, this is not a far-fetched assertion. There would be no gay marriage in the US now if this had happened (the US Constitution takes precedence over state constitutions). DOMA may suck, but it will be far easier to repeal it when the country accepts gay rights than it would be to repeal a constitutional amendment.
Actually, I think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have a lot in common. They are both very charming people who are also both very bright. It is interesting that both of there first “mistakes” have involved the gay community – Clinton’s order to the military requiring them to accept gay people (which created a large reaction resulting in DADT) and Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren.
Leland Frances
Gee, Blake, your concept of “facts” and “everyone” as in “everyone knows, Bill Clinton threw African-Americans under the bus” reminds me of the joke about how maps must be designed by men because women would never equate an inch with a mile.
According to an ABC poll on Clinton’s presidency approval ratings:
“Views of Clinton are deeply divided along political and ideological lines. Ninety-three percent of Democrats approve of his job performance; this dives to 32 percent of Republicans. Eighty-six percent of liberals approve, compared to 44 percent of conservatives; and 90 PERCENT OF BLACK APPROVE, compared to 59 percent of whites.” – http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll_clintonlegacy010117.html
Who knew Sista Soulja had so many honky fans?
Quoting a Dole spokesperson on Clinton and Pam and Andrew “Raw Muscle Glutes” Sullivan when they were at their most hysterical and hyperbolic “Obama Is the Messiah” mode are no less ludicrous.
ousslander
Anonysmously openly gay? Sounds like an oxymoron. Clinton was n o good for us. I’ll at least give Obama a chance to herp or throw us under the bus.
Obama sound leave it up to the states to deicde and look what happened in California. So as far as I’m concerned he is okay with gay Californians being denied the right to marriage.
But like I kepp reading on dif sites, he’s secretly very pro-gay just don’t let anyone know.
Jaroslaw
Clinton was no good for us? Then vote Republican and see how that works out. Gee Ouslander, (and others) did you read this Blog before you posted?
And to the others also – I’ve said this over and over – Clinton did what he had to do. Everyone keeps forgetting we are a tiny minority (and I think a big chunk of us even stayed home in California instead of going out to vote against Prop 8)
I’m not giving Clinton uncritical, fawning adulation. Look at Kucinich, he agreed with us on almost everything, and where is he?
Do you want someone who agrees with all your politics and then can’t get elected?
eStreet4ever
I am an employee of this “anonymous” man and feel sick reading the comments. The man is out at his workplace and I have no reason to believe that’s not the case everywhere in his life. He just happens to work in a large governmental institution that does not support domestic partners’ rights and is far from monolithic in being gay-friendly. There is also the very real possibility that the homophobe who might review one of the many grants that keep our institution alive might look at us differently. He is a brave and good man. The reasons he needs to be anonymous is because, guess what? Some people still hate queers.
The Gay Numbers
Oh please- will you stop with the fake posts about how we are suppose to feel bad for putting down some idiot who can’t tell the difference between personal like and public policy.
Screw him and screw the crazy supporters of all type who can not see their choosen leaders for what they are.
Mister C
Another excerpt from the Book “I hate Obama” by Leland Francis. Girl do us a favor just put out the book no one will buy it. And folks can keep quoting Hillary & Bill this and Hillary and Bill that.
But just remember SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GAY MARRIAGE ALSO!
But most of her rabid supporters seemed to let her pass on that. But oh no not Obama….QUEENS give me a headache. And this Anonymous fag…I don’t get her. Come out, come out whoever you are.
Leland Frances
Actually, the book could be called, “The Man Behind the Curtain.” Now pull your head out of Obama’s ass and Andrew Sullivan’s out of yours and grow up.
Or do you STILL think clicking your heels together while Barry spins will get you homo, er, home?
I’m not saying he WON’T get better. I’m just saying you’re all writing on helium, and he’s just a check that has yet to clear the bank.
alan brickman
It’s too bad Rick warren didn’t use the N-WORD…how long would he last then??
ATLmalcontent
I guess Clinton accidentally signed DOMA, then inadvertently bragged about it on Christian radio.
The HRC (Human Rights Campaign/Hillary Rodham Clinton) crowd never quits. Interesting that this comes out the day after Obama’s spokesman confirmed, unequivocally, that DADT will be overturned. Executive orders can do that, you know.
So can presidents who truly care about equality. “But some of Bill Clinton’s best friends are gay …” Best friends being Clinton-speak for rich campaign donors.
You’re right, though, a symbolic prayer is much more important.
Mister C
Ms Leland,
Check this B&TCH. Your motherfucking head has been in Clinton penis and Vag&ina forever. That’s why you still keep mentioning them. Queen let go she didn’t win and like I said the fuck before your a$$ had other choices after all there was McInsane/Stalin running also. And I am grown up. I get sick and tired of your RANTING. You were never an Obama supporter. PLAIN AND SIMPLE!
VOTE Republican next time then when they screw you. Your argument will mean something right about now. You’re blowing putrid, hateration against Barack.
Take your energy and use in your community you know Philly the Black LGBTQ community, or are you too good for them?
It’s raining; it’s snowing Ms Francnosis is___________?
Mike K
I’ve always thought of my civil rights, (or lack thereof), as something I’m entitled to as an American, not because I’m gay. I see this struggle as one for civil right that are being denied to fellow Americans. To me this is “inclusion” not suffering through an invocation by some bigot in the name of inclusiveness. Until ALL Americans are truly free none are.