President G.W. Bush and fmr. RNC chair Ken Mehlman.
Earlier this week, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman came out of the closet, confirming rumors and reports about his sexual orientation that have been around since 2003. Mehlman was also the campaign manager for President George W. Bush during his 2004 re-election campaign. Mehlman was the strategist who came up with the idea to put marriage rights to the ballot box in 11 states in 2004 and several more in 2006 in order to get social conservatives to come out and vote, using homophobia as a way to keep Republicans in power. He’s not the first closet homo to betray his own, but he is by far the most powerful in recent years to do so.
Mehlman now claims to support marriage equality and has expressed a desire to help achieve that end. Putting aside my outrage at this guy for a moment, let’s look at this practically. I don’t know if the damage he did can be undone. He’s created a climate in which over half the states now have some sort of state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, with some states like Texas going so far as to outlaw civil unions, domestic partnerships, or any private legal agreement that confers upon same-sex couples any semblance of marriage rights. Legislators cannot override these amendments. The courts are hesitant to, except in California, and that was only because same-sex marriage was actually legal for a short period of time before Proposition 8 went into effect. As that case waits to be heard by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, efforts to defend marriage equality in the states that have it, and to at least stop further amendments in states that have yet to pass them, continue on. Though the anti-marriage equality movement is waning and groups like the National Organization for Marriage look more and more silly each day, there are still some powerful people out there who still are unwilling to support full marriage equality for gay & lesbian couples.
Like President Barack Obama.
It is sad that Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, and Ken Mehlman have all come out in support of same-sex marriage. That Ann Coulter is being ostracized by World Net Daily for speaking at a gay Republican (GOProud) convention. That Glenn Beck said on The O’Reilly Factor that we have “bigger fish to fry” than same-sex marriage. It’s stunning to me that Barack Obama would waste a political opportunity to be ahead of the curve, and it looks to me like conservatives are making a bold move to capture the gay vote. Obama, on the other hand, who promised to be a “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community, has been one great big letdown. In 2009, his justice department filed a brief (known as the DOMA brief) in federal court, defending a lawsuit against part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, in which it compared same-sex marriages to incestuous couplings. Gay people were noticeably pissed. In response, Obama promised to sign into law a bill that would provide domestic partnership benefits for federal employees. We’re still waiting on that one. Granted, he did sign the Matthew Shepard Act into law, which added sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability to the federal hate crimes statute, but this was hardly an act of courage. The law was attached to a defense authorization measure. Two years prior it passed the House and Senate as a stand-alone bill that was vetoed by President Bush. With a greater Democrat majority in both houses, he couldn’t get this done by itself? And then there is Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Oh boy, is the Obama administration blowing it on this one. The wind is at his back on the repeal of this terrible law, and yet, he continues to pander to the dwindling number of people on the right who support this ban on gay & lesbian servicepeople for no rational reason. His “study” is a joke, the survey being conducted is loaded with homophobic questions, gay soldiers are not guaranteed secrecy if they take the survey, and people can take the survey as many times as they want. Can you say “skewed” and “unscientific”? I don’t remember Harry Truman conducting a survey before he ordered the military to be racially integrated. Soldiers follow orders. This should be a no-brainer. As Rachel Maddow mentioned, spending a little political capital goes a long way in winning respect, not just from your base and the people who voted you in, but from yourself.
I don’t even want to get into Obama hiring an “ex-gay” gospel singer for his campaign tour, or all his other borderline homophobic crap he’s dabbled with the whole time he was courting the gay vote. Ken Mehlman was a high-ranking Republican who was closeted and did do a lot of damage to the cause of equality, but he would have done the same if he were straight. We opposed Mehlman and the agenda he put forth back then. I am far more concerned with elected officials who claim to be ‘fierce advocates’ for me who then refuse to do jack shit when it comes to repealing terrible laws that keep us second-class citizens. Ken Mehlman betrayed himself. Barack Obama has been betraying us since before he got elected.
Food for thought.
~Matti Frost, 8.28.2010
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