***Editorial - Pablo Fanque*** A Fish Rots From The Head Down - Obama's Gay Marriage Problem

"favors civil unions"

Editorial by Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

I hear people continually excoriate the religious right, Rick Warren, Rush Limbaugh and others for opposing gay marriage. But what about El Jefe? Barack Obama is part of the opposition too. . .every bit as much as Rick Warren. I became, fairly late in the race, an Obama supporter. As President, he has surprised me. He's doing a great job. But, in my booklet, his Achilles' Heel is his policy on gay marriage; we should have known, and remembered that. He told us during the election.

Although Barack Obama "supports civil unions," he is against gay marriage. I have come to see this "supports civil unions" as a smarmy dodge that people all across the spectrum employ. Obama's luke-warm support does no favors to anyone at all. In the end, really, how different is this from George Bush? Rush Limbaugh [1], or Louisiana Gov. Jindal? They, too, oppose gay marriage.

In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

Barack Obama did vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.


click to enlarge the BFFs

From the White House Web site: "President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights."


Click to enlarge - "I love you, man"

And yet. . .and yet, I have been spammed with emails, and petitions, asking me to come out against Rick Warren, and other conservatives publicly opposed to gay marriage. What about the guy at the top? "A fish rots from the head down," as Michael Dukakis noted about President Reagan. Nothing has changed. We just like the fish better. Mister President. . .it's time to set aside your cultural predispositions and do what's right. Sure, you'll take some heat, but let's face it--you will never be in a stronger position to expend some of your hard-earned political capital.
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[1] Rush recently delivered this shocking bombshell: "…let’s say we discover the gene that says the kid’s gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don’t know but let’s say half of them said, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna do that to a kid.” [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you’ve ever seen. … They’d be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies.”
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