Tag Archives: obama

A Year Ago

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A year ago last night, we heard people cheering in our neighborhood as Barack Obama was elected president. It was wonderful.

Last night, one year later, we heard people cheering in our neighborhood as the Yankees won the World Series. I couldn’t have cared less.

I mean, I watched the last few minutes of the game on TV so I could see them win. But I really didn’t care. I’m happy for the city, but I’m not a Yankees fan. If I’m a fan of any baseball team at all, it’s the Mets.

Maybe it’s because my family is originally from Queens, like the Mets? Actually, I get it from my brother, who will always look back fondly on the 1986 World Series, when the Mets defeated the Red Sox. The Mets are the underdogs; they’re more interesting to root for, because they’re always losing. The Yankees are rich and can buy their way to victory and don’t need any more fans.

Of course, this also applies to Mike Bloomberg, whom I voted for the other day. But the Yankees are not running for mayor.

Election Night 2009

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This is turning out to be a depressing election night. My home state, New Jersey, has elected a Republican governor for the first time in eight years. (I no longer live there but I do work there.) Maine seems to be rejecting marriage equality. And the Republicans have retaken the governorship of Virginia, another state where I used to live.

Matt and I voted today for NYC mayor. Apparently we were among the pathetically small percentage of New Yorkers who did so. We both supported Bloomberg, but at the last minute Matt decided to vote for Thompson in order to send Bloomberg a message and keep him from getting too cocky about his victory. Bloomberg’s margin of victory is surprisingly thin — apparently lots of other people either did the same thing as Matt or just stayed home because they assumed it would be a blowout.

The only bright spots tonight are that Bill Owens has beat the know-nothing right-winger Doug Hoffman in upstate New York, dealing a blow to Palinism, and that Washington State voters have preserved expansive domestic partnership rights for same-sex couples on par with marriage. These both make me happy.

As for Maine: marriage equality is a generational thing. I’m so sick and tired of seeing gay equality voted down again and again in this country. But younger people support it, and the elderly who oppose it are dying off or heading into nursing homes. The tide is slowly turning in our favor. Our day will come.

And as for New Jersey and Virginia, my consolation is that governors don’t make foreign policy. Christie won’t invade Pennsylvania or something. He hasn’t made clear what he plans to do to fix New Jersey’s economy; Corzine cut government spending and raised taxes. Is Christie planning to do something different? Is there some super-secret non-entitlement spending he plans to cut that Corzine didn’t know about?

Finally, these results are not a reflection on Obama: he still has decent approval ratings in both Virginia and New Jersey. People are pissed off about the economy, but they still support the president. Jon Corzine is an incredibly poor communicator. Virginia, well, Virginia is Virginia.

Sigh. Good night.

Obama and the Gays

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I watched Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night. I was underwhelmed.

Many others have pointed out that it was the same speech Obama could have given as a candidate. As Dan Savage wrote, “Imagine all the wonderful things this guy is going to accomplish if he ever actually gets elected president.” Ooh, Obama mentioned Stonewall in his speech! What is this, 1992? Mentioning Stonewall is like buying a Hallmark card. It means you don’t really give a shit, so you’re going to resort to a cliché. What about Frank Kameny? What about Harry Hay?

Then there was the appalling email that the head of the HRC, Joe Solmonese, sent out a few days ago, apparently saying that we shouldn’t judge Obama’s gay rights record until January 2017. I don’t think he was saying what some critics claim; I think he was merely making the point that by the end of Obama’s administration, we will have seen progress on gay rights, and hey, let’s be optimistic and hope Obama serves two terms instead of one. But that’s not how it came off to some influential people, such as Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage and John Aravosis, and that’s not surprising given that the HRC has accomplished nothing except raising money and holding fancy dinners. To Sullivan and the others, Solmonese seems to be saying that we should wait until 2017 to see any progress. So we may as well have waited until 2012 to elect a Democrat.

Yes, Solmonese’s email was misinterpreted, but it serves him right. Oooh, hate crimes laws! Yay! As if hate crimes aren’t already prosecuted as crimes.

Meanwhile, my frustration with Obama is growing. I’m guessing that he’s waiting until health care passes before addressing gay rights, and that in early 2010, we’ll see him start to move on DADT. He’s afraid of bringing up any “touchy social issues” until health care’s out of the way, and he’s spooked by what happened to Clinton in 1993. But this is 2009, not 1993. Ending DADT is no longer controversial; nearly 70 percent of the public supports ending it.

To be honest, if the choice were between health care reform and gay rights, I’d choose health care reform, because that affects tens of millions of people and it’s one of the biggest problems our country faces. But who says there has to be a choice? Is gay rights really going to drain political capital from health care? Really? If it can survive fake death panels, it can survive DADT.

Obama, despite what the teapartiers think, is not a radical. He’s cautious about moving too quickly — in this case, perhaps too cautious. And nothing can excuse those awful legal briefs in which the administration defended DOMA. I’d be amazed if Obama actually takes any action against DOMA, especially since he’s on record as not supporting marriage equality. (Never mind that both Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA, and even Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman who wrote DOMA, think it should be repealed.) That said, if Congress passes the Respect for Marriage Act, I don’t doubt Obama would sign it.

Still — once again, we are lured for our votes and our money, but a Democratic president isn’t going to lift a finger to actually do anything to help us. If he doesn’t do anything next year, we’ll know Obama doesn’t give a shit about gay rights.