DADT Done, Obama 'Wrestles' with Marriage Equality

As a candidate, Barack Obama spoke of wishing to defend the rights of GLBT Americans-including abolishing two key pieces of anti-gay legislation, 1993's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and 1996's "Defense of Marriage" Act.

Now that he's signed a bill to repeal DADT, the gay community wants to know where Obama stands with marriage. His answer--as given to an interviewer this week--is that his "attitudes are evolving" with respect to the legal rights that gay and lesbian families should enjoy.

The President spoke with Kerry Eleveld, a contributor to The Advocate who has recently taken up a new position as the editor of a new "war room" for GLBT parity called Equality Matters, a spinoff from Media Matters. The interview was posted at The Advocate on Dec. 21 and ere-posted at Media Matters on Dec. 22.

The New York Times reported on the establishment of Equality Matters in a Dec. 19 article, disclosing that Media Matters founder David Brock, together with Clinton advisor Richard Socarides, had been in the process of creating the new "war room" for GLBT equality for some time before DADT's repeal during the lame duck Congressional session.

The Times noted that there has been little movement on efforts to repeal DOMA, a vitriolic piece of legislation that singles out gay and lesbian families and denies them any federal recognition. So wide-ranging is that law's effects that same-sex families are not only denied the same tax breaks as heterosexual couples who choose to marry; the U.S. Census originally announced that it would not be allowed even to count how many gay and lesbian families there are in the United States without running afoul of the law. In the end, though the Census questionnaire for 2010 did not ask about same-sex spouses, analysts were expected to be able to make determinations about the number, composition, and distribution of same-sex families by correlating different data points gleaned from the Census.

"For the gay rights movement, the right to marry is the holy grail, because so many other benefits--including Social Security and health benefits for gay partners, adoption rights, tax benefits and others--flow from it," the New York Times article read.

Eleveld and Obama met on Dec. 20, the day before Obama signed legislation to repeal DADT. A press release described the meeting as "the first one-on-one interview of his presidency with an LGBT news outlet."

Describing himself as "incredibly proud" of the repeal, Obama told Eleveld that he had started working on retiring DADT his first week in office. Obama noted that "the secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both of whom were appointed under Republican presidents, were willing to publicly testify and advocate for this repeal" and "to have engineered an attitudinal study that vindicated my strong belief that people in the military care about how somebody does their job, not their sexual orientation," and said that he was not taken aback at the results of a poll of about half a million servicemembers and their families that showed most of the military did not feel that allowing gays to serve openly would be problematic.

"I was confident about it because I talked to enough troops and I had a sense of the innate fairness of the American people when it comes to an issue like, 'Should people be able to serve their military and potentially die for their country,' " Obama said, adding that he anticipated "that military attitudes were not going to be wildly divergent from public attitudes." A recent poll indicated that over three-quarters of the American public thought that gay and lesbian patriots should be able to serve openly.

"And then to see how that combination of Gates, Mullen, [and] the study break the logjam and essentially provide the space for people of goodwill of both parties to do the right thing was just really gratifying," the President added.

From Equal Service to Equal Rights

When asked by Eleveld about the prospects for marriage equality, Obama recollected that he had recently addressed the issue. In October, Obama indicated to a group of bloggers that his attitude toward marriage equality may be evolving toward an acceptance of full-fledged legal equality for gay and lesbian families.

Anti-gay politicians have, over the course of the last two years, defended their views by saying that their stance on marriage equality is "the same as that of the president." though Obama has said he wishes to see DOMA repealed, he has also said that his personal view of marriage is that it should be reserved as a special right for heterosexual couples. He has, however, also said that gay and lesbian families should be accorded legal status through civil unions that would provide most, if not all, of the more than one thousand rights and protections that marriage confers to heterosexual couples in a single stroke.

During the October interview, Obama was asked about marriage equality by Joe Sudbay of America Blog. Obama reiterated that he is "a strong supporter of civil unions," and added, "I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage.

"But I also think you're right that attitudes evolve, including mine," Obama added. "And I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about because I have a whole host of friends who are in gay partnerships. I have staff members who are in committed, monogamous relationships, who are raising children, who are wonderful parents."

The president went on to say that he was "not prepared to reverse myself here, sitting in the Roosevelt Room at 3:30 in the afternoon," but that the issue remains "something that I think a lot about."

Obama essentially repeated those statements to Eleveld, telling The Advocate's correspondent, "The sentiment I expressed then is still where I am--which is, like a lot of people, I'm wrestling with this. My attitudes are evolving on this. I have always firmly believed in having a robust civil union that provides the rights and benefits under the law that marriage does."

Obama went on to add, "And squaring that circle is something that I have not done yet, but I'm continually asking myself this question and I do think that--I will make this observation, that I notice there is a big generational difference. When you talk to people who are in their 20s, they don't understand what the holdup is on this, regardless of their own sexual orientation. And obviously when you talk to older folks, then there's greater resistance."

Asked about his attitude evolving toward an endpoint of acceptance or endorsement of full marriage equality, the President offered only a good-natured reply of, "I'm going to stick with my answer."

As for repealing DOMA, Obama noted that "there are still a lot of things we can do administratively even if we don't pass things legislatively," such as a requirement that he implemented mandating that hospitals provide visitation privileges for the same-sex life partners of gay and lesbian patients. "Our changes on hospital visitation is something that didn't require legislation but has concrete impacts, making a difference in people's lives as we speak," noted Obama.

Similarly, though federal protections for GLBT workers in the form of Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) may not be gaining traction in Congress, Obama noted that some issues could be addressed that did not require legislative action. "So my ability to make sure that the federal government is an employer that treats gays and lesbians fairly, that's something I can do, and sets a model for folks across the board."

As for judicial means of pursuing full legal equality for sexual minorities, Obama told Eleveld, "I'm not going to put my constitutional lawyer hat on now, partly because I'm president and I've got to be careful about my role in the three branches of government here. But what I will say is that I think that the courts historically have played a critical role in making sure that all Americans are protected under the law. And there are certain groups that are in need of that protection; the court needs to make sure it's there for them."

Obama went on to note that progress on big social issues can be slow because the president must work with a large and sometimes contentious lawmaking body. "Congress is a complicated place with 535 people that you have to deal with in order to get anything done," Obama told Eleveld. "And my belief was when I first came in, and it continues to be, that by getting 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' done, we sent a clear message about the direction, the trajectory of this country in favor of equality for LGBT persons. The next step I think would be legislatively to look at issues like DOMA and ENDA."

Obama cautioned that onlookers should expect a longer time frame for those achievements than remains in his first term, telling Eleveld, "[R]ealistically, we're probably not going to get those done in the next two years unless we see a substantial shift in attitudes within the Republican caucus," but adding optimistically that, "outside of legislative circles, attitudes are changing rapidly." Added the president, "My preference wherever possible is to get things done legislatively because I think it--it gains a legitimacy, even among people who don't like the change, that is valuable."