Gay Marriage Delay is Good News... For President Obama.

by indiemcemopants

When Judge Walker decided to stay his decision to lift the stay on the Prop. 8 decision, it was upsetting to many of us. It's not right to keep gays from marrying. After reading Walker's 138 page decision, that's abundantly clear. I couldn't figure out why he would write so eloquently that delaying and denying marriage to gays is so completely destructive and then he'd deny it to us for a bit longer.

At the time, I said:

Essentially, Judge Walker is saying that he supports his ruling enough to lift the stay but not to stand by that on its merits. He wants to give the bigots time to voice their opinion (and either win a stay or get their whole appeal thrown out for lack of standing), a decision which will effectively make sure his wonderfully written and argued decision only applies to parts of California.

While I'm not averse to caution, this is too much caution. This was a President-Obama-decision. This seems like a "can't we all just get along?" ploy. It doesn't make sense. If you stand by your opinion that gays should not be banned by the government from marriage then stand up for your decision. Don't play both sides or try to act like, wait, just wait, maybe the bigots should get to deny us rights after all.

I wasn't the only one who got mad.

Banning marriage for one more minute isn't acceptable, no matter how much it helps. It causes distinct and irreparable harms to gay couples. You know who it helps though? Democrats! Including the President himself:

Gay men and lesbians will not be lining up -- as they had very much wanted to -- in city halls across the state to marry. Instead, the court said they would have to wait until it could take up the legal debate over California's Proposition 8.

That decision came as a huge disappointment to the activists who sought to have Prop 8 declared unconstitutional. But it was a relief for the White House, meaning that a potentially divisive issue would not play out during the fall midterm elections.

It seems like gay people's pain is always a huge relief for the White House and Democrats. If we're hurting because of something Democrats are doing, they can say "See? We're moderates, really. We don't like gays either." Caving to gays' demands on Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal didn't happen, because the Democrats were worried about seeming too radical, but they sure did defer the repeal plan to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The idea seems to be that they want to keep gays hurting and keep right wingers happy.

We weren't in the health care talks, we won't be discussed during immigration reform talks, even though the Uniting American Families Act is a huge priority for us, and in fact, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act would save a lot of headaches for the Democrats and the President, but even knowing that, they're still not going to repeal it. So, what's the deal?

And even worse, someone close to the administration says that discrimination against gays is a distraction:

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who is close with top White House officials, said Obama has "suffered through a season of distractions. He didn't need one more distraction."

I'm so sorry that President Obama has "suffered" because of discrimination against gay people by his employer. Must be tough for him to suffer through all of this. Next thing you know we'll be distracting him by wanting ENDA passed so we can get jobs too. I can only conclude that Democrats really don't like gay people.

The thing is: it doesn't matter. We're energized now. We're not going away. We're not stopping and we won't get quiet. In fact I expect to see gay people getting louder very, very soon. Like it or not.