Even Obama and Biden are against gay marriage

[chicken]

Yep, I just heard it right from Biden. I am bewildered. Here I go feeling like a damn disenfranchised second-class citizen again. I think this might be why I liked Hillary Clinton, she was much more in favor of actual gay marriage, or at least that's what I gleaned from her online position statements a few months ago.

Palin's whole "I'm tolerent!" bullshit made me want to weep. I guess compared to some people on the right who actively want to kill us, she is, but holy cow, that's right up there with "some of my best friends are gay".

Comments

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was very disappointed to hear that. I felt at least some relief to know that they at least agreed to civil rights as a couple. It's a start at least. Not sure what to feel about the rest though. It's just so disheartening.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I just find it weird that they are all "yay civil rights" but "sorry you can't call it marriage". What's the big deal about that word? It's a broken concept even for straight people, why can't they just throw us a bone?

[bunnyohare.livejournal.com]

I think in her case it would be more like "I am tolerant, I even let one of those gays even styled my hair once."

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA!

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

LOL, that's scarily funny.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

All Biden had to do is call for a separation of Church and State on the marriage civil rights issue. Why is that so hard to comprehend? (Of course, I'm really unsure as to why the gay marriage movement doesn't adopt a similar language.)

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Well, no one on the left is being very clear about this.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that, besides general homophobia, the base-fear of the right-wing nut jobs is that gay marriage is going to come into their church. It needs to be made clear that it's up to the church to decide whether or not to perform gay weddings and that has nothing to do with the state. (Though I think they shouldn't get state funding if they discriminate against anyone, but that's a whole other bag of worms.) I'd say that with the exception of some real haters, a lot of anti-gay marriage people, the centrist ones who are likely to vote against gay marriage, aren't against the civil rights issues and would say, just like Biden did, that they think hospital visitations, inheritances, etc., are a-okay.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Obama's been trying to have it both ways, saying he's personally against it but honors California's decision and opposes the California constitutional amendment initiative. It's kind of incoherent and I suspect was calculated out to the last millimeter.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

That's the horrible "centrist" line you have to walk when you're running for President, sadly.

[itsabigrock.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was very frustrated about that too, but I do feel that what Biden was saying is that they do not support a federal amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Obama refers to us as his brothers and sisters. I have to believe that while they don't want a federal amendment, they do support individual states' rights to define marriage as they see fit.

I'm still hopeful.

That said, everytime I hear the word 'tolerate' I have to choke back the tears and the vomit. Nothing gets my ire on quicker than being 'tolerated'.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Yes, toleration implies the people doing the tolerating don't really like and can actually barely stand the tolerated, and therefore it sounds really condescending at best.

[liliaeth]

I'm just hoping that once your country elects Obama, that you guys can move on to the right path (or in this case the left*eg*) and maybe possibly even get a to a a point where major national politicians can march along in a gay pride march and be admired for it by the general public like they do here.

Unfortunately Obama nor Biden can risk to scare off the far right nutcases for whom abortion and gay marriage are 'the' most important issues, regardless of what else is going on.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

You nailed it. It's so sad but true.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Sadly I think abortion and homosexuality are being held up as "boogeymen" to distract "Joe Six Pack" from the fact that the Republicans have created a financial nightmare in which Joe Six Pack's house and job are melting away into a puddle of wall street greed.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

All of these people on my f-list who watched the debates, you are brave.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I was too scared to watch. I turned it on for five minutes, heard the thing about gay marriage, and fled again.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

FWIW, when my sister in law went to a swanky fund raiser with Obama a few weeks ago, she had five minutes to talk directly with him. She said, essentially, "I have four daughters. One of them is a lesbian. I want to make sure that ALL of my daughters have the right to marry the people they love, not just the straight ones." He said, "It's a priority." Now, of course, politically they CAN'T say that they're all for gay marriage. That would be the end of a presidential campaign, period. Only SMART people support gay marriage, and we saw how the last election went re: smart people...so...

I do believe that Obama believes in marriage rights. I don't believe, politically, he can address it until the first year of his second term.

On the other hand, I wish there were an option where *I* could have gotten 'civil unioned' or whatever various places are calling it, instead of married. I don't think THAT is fair. I think straight people should start pushing for THAT.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

It also doesn't make sense or fairness that so many financial and legal rights and responsibilities are tied to marriage.

I did suspect that many on the left including Obama and Biden were secretly for gay marriage but couldn't say so in public. Thanks for that story!