Hallelujah and Amen!

[mouseferatu]

Obama orders hospital visit rights for gays, lesbians.

Comments

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

After my initial moment of !!, I am now cynically wondering if this isn't a defensive maneuver of some sort. He has been very clear that he does not support gay marriage (or at least, not using the m-word.) If they can address some of the issues that are most blatantly unfair about marriage discrimination, then they can say, "see, you can still visit your partner [or whatever other thing] without being married, so will you get off our backs."

It's not that I think this is a bad thing, or that he shouldn't have done it. But saying "you cannot limit visitors to legal relatives if that means excluding a same-sex partner" is a paltry substitute for "you have to recognize same-sex partners as legal relatives."

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Even if that's the case--and I'm not prepared to guess either way--I think we need to celebrate and encourage this as a victory and a step in the right direction.

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

I think it quite likely is, if not a defensive maneuver, at least a stalling-for-time maneuver. He is against gay marriage, or was during the campaign, though I wish I knew whether that's a position he genuinely holds or maintains for political purposes. At any rate, he's being pressed hard on marriage and on Don't Ask Don't Tell, and rightfully so. So while it may well be that this is intended as a sincere giving what he feels he can agree with giving, it may also be a pragmatic delaying tactic to avoid getting more involved in the controversy -- at least till after financial reform (or any of the other bazillion things he's got on his agenda that sadly come before gay rights). One of the things I'm figuring out about Obama is that he is most definitely a game-player, something I don't necessarily like but understand the necessity of. I don't do that kind of thing, which is why I'm glad I'm not president. One of many reasons why.

However, while I of course *strongly* disagree with Obama's anti-marriage stance and think he needs to either change his mind or get seriously schooled, I'm happy about this development for a number of reasons.

1) It's just good.
2) It's a step in the right direction. The more steps in the right direction, the easier it becomes to keep going in the right direction, as people observe the world failing to fall into Armageddon because THE GHEYS got civil rights.
3) The more he supports gay rights, the more flak he's going to take from the hate crowd. The more flak he takes from vitriolic haters, the more likely he is to decide he might as well get hung for a sheep as for a lamb, and move towards a stronger pro-rights position.

Semi-related, I kind of feel the same way about Washington's Ref 71. Yes, it was "rights lite" in that it was not the M-word, and I'm sure many bigots who voted for the domestic partnership law patted themselves on the back for being so enlightened, and I'm just glad I don't have to hear them do it so I don't have to throw up. (Actually, I did have to hear a little of that when I phonebanked for it, and you know what I did? Swallowed my outrage and politely thanked them for their support.) OTOH, it does equalize the actual legal rights, and getting people used to state-recognized full-rights civil partnerships is, to my mind, more likely to prepare the ground for full marriage later on than to poison it. Incremental strategies suck because they're incremental, but they do seem to work better in some situations...certainly not all, though. Other times the dramatic is better.

So the WH website will likely be getting a "Yay, cookie for you! But you're still not off the hook about marriage and DADT." comment from me. :-)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Just what I was thinking. But I will remain optimistic as long as possible.

-The Gneech