SALON

Thursday, May 10, 2012 6:12 PM UTC

Obama’s next moves on marriage

The president should speak out against state marriage bans and stop enforcing DOMA

By

Topics: Gay Marriage, Barack Obama,

Obama's next moves on marriagePresident Obama (Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas)

President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage is a huge victory for the gay rights movement, but it’s also a qualified one. Obama said he still supports the right of states to deny couples same-sex marriage rights, but “personally,” he thinks that’s wrong. In addition to making Obama’s stance on gay rights a bit less incoherent — how much sense did it make for him to oppose both gay-marriage and the gay-marriage ban in North Carolina, which passed on Tuesday? — the president’s much-anticipated “evolution” opens the door for him to be a more fierce advocate for gay rights.

I don’t mean to downplay the importance of having the president support marriage equality. It’s a decisive blow in the culture war. For years, the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, has been able to deflect criticism by pointing out that Obama shared its views.

“Four years ago in California, Prop. 8 supporters had a flyer that they passed out saying Obama opposed same-sex marriage,” says John Lewis, legal director for Equality USA, a gay-rights group. “They used his equivocation quite effectively against us. They can’t do that anymore.”

But there are key ways in which Obama can pay this forward. A few weeks ago, the president angered many in the gay-rights community by refusing to sign an executive order banning government contractors from discriminating against gay people. In most of the country, your employer can still fire you because of your sexual orientation. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) continues to prevent the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in the states, which among other things means same-sex partners who aren’t U.S. citizens face deportation. The president’s announcement yesterday, while a step forward, is hardly the end of the road.

Most immediately, say gay-rights advocates, the president should use his platform to oppose proposed bans on same-sex marriage in Minnesota, Maryland and Washington state, as well as support a ballot initiative in Maine that would grant same-sex couples marriage rights (last year, the state’s gay-marriage law was overridden by a referendum).

“I hope he speaks out on the ballot measures,” says Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry. “We want the president to speak out forcefully on each of [these pieces of legislation], and I think he will.”

The president can also champion other important pieces of legislation, among them the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would make discrimination against gay people in employment and housing illegal, and the DOMA repeal currently struggling in the House of Representatives.

Many people also don’t realize that, while “don’t ask, don’t tell” put an end to the systematic removal of gay people from the military, it doesn’t abolish discrimination entirely. Because there are no affirmative protections in place (as there are for women and minorities in the military), gay service members can still be passed up for promotions or, hypothetically, get kicked out of the military for being gay. The difference is that now, it’s not an official policy.

“The repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ did not affirmatively put into law protections against discrimination,” Lewis says.

In the same way Obama could sign an executive order preventing government contractors from discriminating against gay people, he could amend federal policy to protect gay and lesbian service members from discrimination.

Perhaps the most significant way the Obama administration can make things better for gay people is to stop enforcing DOMA. It has plenty of cover to do so. Last year, the Department of Justice said it would no longer defend the law against the numerous challenges it faced in court, which has already been ruled as unconstitutional by two separate federal courts. It can take a similar position when it comes to putting it in place. Earlier this year, and after a lot of legal wrangling, the administration finally allowed Karen Golinsky, a federal lawyer, to add her wife to her Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plan. But the decision was a one-off, and doesn’t allow other federal employees the same benefits. While the Obama administration would need legislative approval for other things — like recognizing same-sex couples for tax purposes — extending health benefits to all federal workers is one concrete way it can show its support for gay people.

This election, social issues will take a backseat to concerns over the economy, which might be a good thing for gay-rights supporters. It allows the president to make to make inroads on gay rights without the maelstrom of controversy that might erupt were conservatives not busy trying to put us back on the gold standard or firing federal workers. In other words, Obama has plenty of room left to evolve.

More Gabriel Arana.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 16 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
40 points41 points | 1 comment
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
28 points29 points | 1 comment
vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
6 points7 points | comment
vote
Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic shows the famously flamboyant entertainer as a person, not a stereotype
6 points7 points | comment
vote
Experts: Fox News spying scandal a game-changer - I think that crackdown is ideologically driven and I think it’s hard to come to a different conclusion given the vigor with which this justice department has gone after people. So I think it is about a method of control that is badly misplaced.
2 points3 points | 6 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations