President Barack Obama is taking heat from some gays and lesbians for not fulfilling campaign pledges. He’s also taking their cash.
Gay rights activists have complained that Obama has not followed through on his promises to repeal a law banning their open service in the military, to do away with a federal marriage law or to champion their causes from the White House. During his first five months, he’s taken incremental steps that have little real effect and left some people feeling betrayed.
But he still felt comfortable sending Vice President Joe Biden to a Democratic National Committee fundraiser with gay and lesbian donors.
“I hope you don’t doubt the president’s commitment,” Biden said during a 20-minute address at the gathering. Assuring donors and other guests that Obama would keep the nation focused on “the unfinished business of true equality for all our people,” the vice president said, “I don’t blame you for your impatience.”
Some gay donors had called for a boycott of the fundraiser after Obama’s Justice Department, in a court filing, compared gay marriages to incest.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate time to be raising money. No one is happy now,” said Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay issues in the 1990s and did not plan to attend the event. “On gay rights, the country is already in the age of Obama, but he’s governing from the Clinton era.”
Even before Obama took office, he disappointed gay and lesbian activists who objected to the invitation to evangelist Rev. Rick Warren to participate in the president’s January inauguration despite Warren’s support for repealing gay marriage in California.
As president, Obama has expanded some federal benefits to same-sex partners, but not health benefits or pension guarantees. But that remains far short of his campaign rhetoric.
“At its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans,” Obama said in a 2007 statement on gay issues. “It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.”
Since then, he publicly has committed himself to repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they don’t disclose their sexual orientation or act on it. But as president, Obama hasn’t taken any concrete steps urging Congress to rescind the Clinton-era policy.
Obama pledged during the campaign to work for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits how state, local and federal bodies can recognize partnerships and determine benefits.
But lawyers in his administration defended the law in a court brief. White House aides said they were only doing their jobs to back a law that is on the books.
