Gay
Marriage: Political Calculation and American Idealism (La Stampa,
Italy)
“For Obama as for all U.S. presidents, idealism always comes with a dose of political calculation. ... Obama’s are subtle and not without risks. ... Whatever Europeans may think, how fascinating is the charisma of a Republic that for two and a half centuries, through defeat and triumph, has pursued equality and the happiness of guaranteeing universal rights, before God and the law?”
Obama's civil rights gamble: With an issue as fast-moving as the acceptance of homosexuality, most political strategists are flummoxed about the consequences of his public approval of gay marriage.
Saying “yes” to gay marriage is Barack Obama’s first
historic act. In the midst of the 2012 election campaign for the White House,
the president has aligned the Democratic Party with an issue considered,
along with abortion, one of the most traumatic progressive-conservative
cultural schisms: 50 percent favor gay marriage and 48 percent oppose it. The
president stated: “It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think
same sex couples should be able to get married,” shielding his same-sex marriage
declaration behind gay Marines on the front lines; gay staff members being “in
incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same sex relationships, who are
raising kids together,” only to live a clandestine life because they are not
heterosexuals; and his daughters Malia and Sasha who have classmates that are
children of gay couples.
Obama has changed his mind since his 2004 Senate
campaign, when he said: “I’m a Christian. I do believe that tradition and my
religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a
woman.” In his 2006 essay, The Audacity of Hope,
he took a step forward, and in his usual cerebral style, said, “It is my
obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also
as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to
support gay marriage is misguided.” And now finally, he has said that he was.
For Obama as for every U.S. president, idealism always comes
with a dose of political calculation. In the race to defeat Republican Mitt
Romney in November, Obama has a serious deficiency: He has done little to
achieve the dream of a wiser and more just America. The economy, in the midst
of the worst crisis since 1929, has prevented him from achieving his reforms,
and even health care is at risk, as it is now before the Supreme Court. The Arab
world has managed its revolutions on its own, peace in Middle East is no closer
than it was under G.W. Bush, strategic troop
withdrawals are being carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as Churchill
used to say, retreats don’t win wars.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
The consent of gay marriage, long supported by the liberal
base and with a passion by young people, raises the civil rights banner. At the
same time, however, Obama delegates the responsibility to vote yes or no on
non-heterosexual marriage to the individual states. Throughout American history, the
dilemma of whether a right should be asserted on a federal level by Washington or
by the single states has been a dramatic one. The 1861-1865 Civil War, which left
more people dead that any other U.S. conflict, was sparked by a clash among the
states over slavery. Lincoln was willing to leave slavery in force in the old
American South. But controversy raged over the fate of slaves that had fled to
the North, and the introduction of this odious practice into states coming into the union proved
impossible to mediate. It took until the middle of the war for Lincoln to issue
the Emancipation
Proclamation, which deals with the subject of universal civil rights.
Obama’s political calculations are subtle and not without
risk. He knows that Democratic activists will be galvanized and that the gay
community contains some of his most generous donors. And by radicalizing the
agenda, he depicts Republicans as extremist bigots, capable of dumping senior Senator
Richard Lugar to elect conservative Murdoch, who is linked to populist Tea
Party.
But Obama also knows that Latino and African-American voters,
some of his most ardent supporters, are often hostile to gay marriage, not to
mention Catholics and Evangelicals in rural communities who consider the idea
anathema. According to “cyber” experts who analyze online data on social
networks like Facebook, Google, Twitter, blogs and
other sites, the 2012 presidential election will be decided on economic issues
(export-import data and employment). So it would perhaps have been better not
to be “historic” on issues less critical to the White House. Vice President
Biden, a Catholic, announced a few days before Obama that he favors gay
marriage, and analysts scoured the Web for “metadata” on the reaction. Shielded
by this digital support, Obama decided to take to the field.
One relief for Obama: Romney, pressed by conservatives, will
have to introduce a constitutional amendment against gay couples, forcing him
to deviate from the themes of the [economic] crisis and unemployment. A
referendum to that effect was just passed in North Carolina, and others are in place
in 30 states. A half dozen states, New York among them,
allow gay marriage, while others will hold a referendum on the issue in
November.
The New York Times, which publishes a popular chronicle
every Sunday on gay marriage in well-to-do Manhattan, criticized Obama for not
having proclaimed a “universal right” to marriage between people of the same
sex, demanding “equal protection” of all citizens under the 14th
Amendment of the Constitution. The same amendment was seized upon when Whites
and Afro-Americans in the South were prohibited from marrying. A fine-tuned
politician, Obama wouldn’t want to embitter the atmosphere by mentioning this.
That is the political backdrop, and we will see in November whether
Obama has properly interpreted the American mood through the Internet “metadata.”
However, history books will record that in 2012, a president of the United
States proclaimed the right to marriage for gay and lesbian citizens. For many
Americans, this alone is a political victory. And for many others, it marks the
end of a personal torment, a private injustice. Culture, religious beliefs,
politics, business, school, family, welfare, the armed forces, all of American
society will now walk the path opened up by Obama.
Whatever people in Europe may think, how fascinating is the
charisma of a Republic that for two and a half centuries, through defeat and
triumph, has pursued equality and the happiness of guaranteeing universal
rights, before God and the law?
