Commentary: Obama Absent on Gay Rights
by William Jelani Cobb
(CNN) -- Last week Gov. John Lynch signed a bill making New Hampshire the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage.
It was a paradoxical moment. The new law is a reminder that same-sex marriage is the civil rights issue of our era and just how far the movement for marriage equality has come. It also highlighted the unexpected and remarkable silence from the White House on this issue.
During the campaign, Barack Obama assured gays and lesbians that he supported repealing "don't ask, don't tell" as well as adoption and anti-discrimination rights for the gay community. Those kinds of promises carry a particular weight when made by a man whose very capacity to run for elected office is the yield of another civil rights struggle.
That lineage and the high expectations that come with it gave Obama an amazing degree of latitude, allowing him, for instance, to remain relatively unscathed even when he placed the Rev. Rick Warren on the Inauguration Day program.
But to date he has taken no significant action on this front and, more critically, his administration is actually being outpaced by state legislatures around the country.
Read the Full Essay @ CNN.com
by William Jelani Cobb
(CNN) -- Last week Gov. John Lynch signed a bill making New Hampshire the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage.
It was a paradoxical moment. The new law is a reminder that same-sex marriage is the civil rights issue of our era and just how far the movement for marriage equality has come. It also highlighted the unexpected and remarkable silence from the White House on this issue.
During the campaign, Barack Obama assured gays and lesbians that he supported repealing "don't ask, don't tell" as well as adoption and anti-discrimination rights for the gay community. Those kinds of promises carry a particular weight when made by a man whose very capacity to run for elected office is the yield of another civil rights struggle.
That lineage and the high expectations that come with it gave Obama an amazing degree of latitude, allowing him, for instance, to remain relatively unscathed even when he placed the Rev. Rick Warren on the Inauguration Day program.
But to date he has taken no significant action on this front and, more critically, his administration is actually being outpaced by state legislatures around the country.
Read the Full Essay @ CNN.com
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