President Barack Obama On Marriage Equality and LGBT Rights
Thursday, June 23, 2011
President Obama didn't endorse gay marriage in New York this evening - as many hoped (I myself wrote to encourage him to do so) but the time is coming soon, I believe, when the president will take the right stand.
It is difficult to imagine how quickly opinion has shifted on this issue. In 2004, numerous states were adopting constitutional amendments banning gay marriage (even in progressive Oregon). Just back in the 90s President Clinton backed DADT and the Defense of Marriage Act.
The Human Rights Campaign has endorsed President Obama's re-election - and they believe with good cause:
“President Obama has improved the lives of LGBT Americans more than any President in history,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “In 2008 we were promised change and profound change is what we got. More remains to be done and ensuring that President Obama is able to continue the forward momentum toward equality for another term is an absolute priority of the Human Rights Campaign.”
President Obama’s Administration’s record of accomplishment for the LGBT community includes:
- Pressing for passage and signing legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that bans openly lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers.
- Pressing for passage and signing an inclusive hate crimes law – the first federal statute to explicitly protect LGBT individuals.
- Determining that the administration believes Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional and refusing to defend the discriminatory law in court.
- Requiring hospitals nationwide to adopt LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies regarding visitation.
In addition, the administration’s policies: added gender identity to the equal employment opportunity policy governing all federal jobs; permitted married same-sex couples to use their marriage licenses as evidence of a name change for passports and instituted more reasonable standards for changing a gender marker on passports; allowed the Census Bureau to release data on married same-sex couples; extended a number of benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees possible under existing authority; launched a National HIV/AIDS Strategy and efforts to target populations most at risk; required abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs be inclusive of and non-stigmatizing toward LGBT youth; and recognized LGBT families are protected under a host of laws from the Violence Against Women Act to family and medical leave regulations to housing programs.
More information on the President’s LGBT record is available at: www.hrc.org/ObamaEndorsement.
“The records of the other candidates seeking the presidency should be a wake-up call to fair-minded Americans,” said Solmonese. “As the fight for equality moves forward, President Obama is marching with us while the alternatives would stop us in our tracks.”
As a minister in the United Church of Christ, it is my great hope and prayer that President Obama and all those running for office will soon endorse full marriage equality as the General Synod of the UCC did in 2005. With support from GOP figures such as former Vice-President Dick Cheney and former First Lady Laura Bush this has rightly become a bi-partisan cause. As I told President Obama in my letter this week, supporting marriage equality is also a position consistent with Christian ethics.
For The Love Of All Creation: A Sermon On Genesis 1:1-2:4a for Pride Month 2011 from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.