Given this and other things he has done for the LGBT community, I do not know why there is a huge push for him to come out in favor of marriage equality right now. 2012 is shaping up to be similar to 2008 in that conservatives are very much on the fence about their lackluster field of contenders for The White House. Many are already planning to sit out the election. Why on earth should Pres. Obama take a public position on this issue before the election and give them a reason to go out to the polls en masse. While it is not a polarizing issue for most Americans, it is for a number of conservatives. As Keith Boykin astutely tweeted a few weeks ago, very few people who know how to read between the lines think that Obama opposes marriage equality. Let’s read between the lines, folks. The President has winked and nodded enough on this issue (i.e. – I’m not enforcing DOMA and I support the Respect for Marriage Act) for us to be confident of his intentions, if reelected. That is a big “if.” What we supporters of marriage equality have to ask ourselves is whether it is more important to have the President publicly speak to that support and risk activating an anemic Republican base or sidestep the question and win reelection. I assure you, a President Romney or Bachmann would not be nearly as enlightened on our issues as President Obama has been and is. All reasonable people know that marriage equality is going to happen. As Peter Rosenstein points out, the majority of young people today support marriage equality. I fear that if President Obama speaks to full support of marriage equality now, the resulting Republican victory will actually delay the inevitable by 10-15 years. It could be longer if a liberal justice retires or dies with a Republican in The White House.

While I understand the desire for the President to speak publicly in support of marriage equality, it does very little to help achieve it. Our best bet is to not energize the social conservatives and reelect President Obama. Following that strategy (remember, strategy is not a bad thing), we can actually make real progress towards achieving marriage equality.

Obama and the Congressional Democrats repeatedly betrayed environmentalists and imprisoned and tortured GLBT-antiwar hero Brad Manning. They prosecuted, at a horrifying loss in lives to civilians and GIs, six (and counting) wars of naked, ugly aggression to steal land, oil, resources and military bases. They betrayed unions and busted the UAW. And then there’s us, the perennial under the bus crowd.

Unions are threatening to cut him off at the knees, politically speaking, by withdrawing support and contributions. From my point of view that can’t happen too soon and then we can rename them Whigs and continue to fight our other enemies, the Republicans.

On Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, forget the bigot. Vote socialist, vote left or just sit it out. Instead of worrying about which right wing candidate wins concentrate on building mass movements to win our agenda.

The absurdity of electioneering raised it head again and the movement was put on hold for the 2010 elections which had a big surprise for Democrats. Because they’d betrayed everyone but the banksters and the military industrial complex, they were summarily abandoned by 30 million of those who voted for Obama.

Now we’re in for more election hoopla and hopey/changey/evolvy. But with the WH, Congress and the courts firmly in the hands of right wing Democrats and Republicans not much is going to change.

Just before the vote in New York Obama met with two groups. The first was with GLBT misleaders who attended a $1250.00 a plate dinner for his campaign where he declined to endorse our rights as he did again today. Then Obama moved on to the real business of the night, dinner at Daniel, a very expensive venue where Wall Street banksters paid $35,800 per plate to have the ear of the man who’s given them trillions in bailouts, in donations to insurance companies as part of his ‘heath care’ scam, in hundreds of billions in ‘stimulus’ boondoggles and to subsidize the losses of banksters caught in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles.

There’ll be much more of the same. According to Bloomberg via AmericaBlog Obama is soliciting “donors who pledge $75,800 to the Obama Victory Fund”, who’ll be named “Presidential Partners”. According to AmericaBlog “you would have to be a fool to miss the connection between the meek financial reform that the White House promoted and his campaign contributions. Also, let’s think for a moment about the extension of tax breaks for the wealthy. If you are not part of the deep pocket crowd, you’re really not very important to this administration…”

Obama and the Congressional Democrats repeatedly betrayed environmentalists and imprisoned and tortured GLBT-antiwar hero Brad Manning. They prosecuted, at a horrifying loss in lives to civilians and GIs, six (and counting) wars of naked, ugly aggression to steal land, oil, resources and military bases. They betrayed unions and busted the UAW. And then there’s us, the perennial under the bus crowd.
Unions are threatening to cut him off at the knees, politically speaking, by withdrawing support and contributions.

From my point of view that can’t happen too soon and then we can rename them Whigs and continue to fight our other enemies, the Republicans.

On Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, forget the bigot. Vote socialist, vote left or just sit it out. Instead of worrying about which right wing candidate wins concentrate on building mass movements to win our agenda.

The absurdity of electioneering raised it head again and the movement was put on hold for the 2010 elections which had a big surprise for Democrats. Because they’d betrayed everyone but the banksters and the military industrial complex, they were summarily abandoned by 30 million of those who voted for Obama.

Now we’re in for more election hoopla and hopey/changey/evolvy. But with the WH, Congress and the courts firmly in the hands of right wing Democrats and Republicans not much is going to change.
Just before the vote in New York Obama met with two groups. The first was with GLBT misleaders who attended a $1250.00 a plate dinner for his campaign where he declined to endorse our rights as he did again today. Then Obama moved on to the real business of the night, dinner at Daniel, a very expensive venue where Wall Street banksters paid $35,800 per plate to have the ear of the man who’s given them trillions in bailouts, in donations to insurance companies as part of his ‘heath care’ scam, in hundreds of billions in ‘stimulus’ boondoggles and to subsidize the losses of banksters caught in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles.

There’ll be much more of the same. According to Bloomberg via AmericaBlog Obama is soliciting “donors who pledge $75,800 to the Obama Victory Fund”, who’ll be named “Presidential Partners”. According to AmericaBlog “you would have to be a fool to miss the connection between the meek financial reform that the White House promoted and his campaign contributions. Also, let’s think for a moment about the extension of tax breaks for the wealthy. If you are not part of the deep pocket crowd, you’re really not very important to this administration…”

Obama and the Congressional Democrats repeatedly betrayed environmentalists and imprisoned and tortured GLBT-antiwar hero Brad Manning. They prosecuted, at a horrifying loss in lives to civilians and GIs, six (and counting) wars of naked, ugly aggression to steal land, oil, resources and military bases. They betrayed unions and busted the UAW. And then there’s us, the perennial under the bus crowd.
Unions are threatening to cut him off at the knees, politically speaking, by withdrawing support and contributions.

From my point of view that can’t happen too soon and then we can rename them Whigs and continue to fight our other enemies, the Republicans.

On Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, forget the bigot. Vote socialist, vote left or just sit it out. Instead of worrying about which right wing candidate wins concentrate on building mass movements to win our agenda.