Reply #80: You're wrong. [View All]

[Sapphocrat]

I didn't want to come out of my self-imposed exile, but some memories are too damned short -- or too damned selective -- and where faulty memory isn't the culprit, it appears ignorance and/or laziness is.

This is the second time today, on a casual skim of DU, that I've seen the first of these two claims, both of which are dead wrong:

1. Obama promised to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell," but I do not remember a time frame He seems to be doing it.

November 29, 2007:

“As president, I will work with Congress and place the weight of my administration behind enactment of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which will make nondiscrimination the official policy of the U.S. military. I will task the Defense Department and the senior command structure in every branch of the armed forces with developing an action plan for the implementation of a full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And I will direct my Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to develop procedures for taking re-accession requests from those qualified service members who were separated from the armed forces under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and still want to serve their country. The eradication of this policy will require more than just eliminating one statute. It will require the implementation of anti-harassment policies and protocols for dealing with abusive or discriminatory behavior as we transition our armed forces away from a policy of discrimination. The military must be our active partners in developing those policies and protocols. That work should have started long ago. It will start when I take office.”

-- Senator Barack Obama to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)

2. Obama was never for gay marriage. He stated clearly that he was for Civil unions. He made no promises in this regard.

Read it and weep:




Press release:

Obama Once Backed Full Gay Marriage
Windy City Times releases 1996 survey answers

CHICAGO — January 13, 2009 — During his run for Illinois state Senate in 1996, Barack Obama stated his unequivocal support for gay marriage, according to an exclusive story in the Jan. 14, 2009 Windy City Times newspaper.

President-elect Obama’s answer to a 1996 Outlines newspaper question on marriage was: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” There was no use of the phrase “civil unions”.

This answer is among those included in this week’s Windy City Times feature on Obama’s evolving position on gay marriage. Windy City Times also includes his answers to the candidate questionnaire of IMPACT, at one time a gay political action committee in Illinois. In that survey he also stated his support of same-sex marriage.

During the final weeks of the presidential campaign last fall, several media outlets contacted Windy City Times because of an old internet story from the 1996 Illinois state Senate race. In that campaign, Outlines newspaper reported that 13th District candidate Barack Obama supported gay marriage. Reporters wanted to know what exactly Obama had said.

Outlines summarized the results in that 1996 article by Trudy Ring, but did not list exact answers to questions. In that article Outlines did note that Obama was a supporter of same-sex marriage and that article was never challenged or corrected by Obama. Just recently, the original Outlines and IMPACT surveys were found in the newspaper’s archives.

More recently, as Obama has run for higher office, from U.S. senate to president, he has further shaped his views on marriage, and now he does not back same-sex marriage, but favors civil unions.

The Jan. 14 Windy City Times has articles by Publisher and Executive Editor Tracy Baim looking at Obama’s marriage record, including from a 2004 interview she conducted with the U.S. senate hopeful, and also an article by Timothy Stewart-Winter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, who is writing his dissertation on lesbian and gay politics in Chicago. Stewart-Winter provides a look at the context of Obama’s race in 1996 against incumbent Alice Palmer.

The full articles and copies of the Outlines and IMPACT 1996 questionnaires are available online at www.windycitymediagroup.com starting Jan. 14, and at hundreds of Chicago-area delivery locations.

Now, can we put these two myths to bed one and for all?

And will somebody please bookmark this post for future reference? 'Cause I'm sick to death of repeating it all over and over and over again.

Outta here until the next thing that makes me scream out loud at the monitor -- which, I hope, will not be these tired old chestnuts again.