It’s about time the US legalized gay marriage. The world’s queer population had high hopes when Obama was elected.
Remember the effect his speeches had on us during his first presidential campaign? It was a revolution to hear a man talk that way about rights and freedom and, more importantly, compassion and kindness, if not common sense. I’ll speak personally: Obama was to me the physical form of hope.
Since then, the veil has been taken off my eyes and all illusion has turned to dust.
Either he meant everything he said but the constraints of being president are so big that he cannot do as he wishes, or, and I hope this isn’t the case, he was talking with his mind, hoping to win votes, and not with his heart — he never meant to close Guantanamo Bay, he never really wanted to legalize gay marriage.
Obama’s current views on gay marriage are “evolving.” I’m not sure what that means? Is he evolving as a human being or are marriages evolving as legal pacts and spiritual ceremonies?
A window of opportunity and hope for gay people in America has come from the mouth of Vice-President Joseph R Biden:
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women
marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are
entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil
liberties,” Mr Biden said in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Vice-President Joseph R Biden, speaking about gay marriage on Sunday, May 6, on Meet the Press.
I’m not sure if words will be turned into action.
In The Times‘ The Caucus blog, we are reminded that “Last year, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said
in Geneva that ‘gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay
rights,’ a message that Mr Obama later enthusiastically endorsed.”
As election time nears, I still hope President Obama is not just buying votes with nice words.
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