Archive for "Feb, 28 2011"

Do DOMA Reactions Reveal Challenges of Tentative Progress?

So, President Obama comes out last week and says the DOJ will no longer defend DOMA in court (as so many of us have been asking him to do for two years) and the right wing goes CRAZY.

Possible presidential candidate Herman Cain called it a “breach of presidential duty bordering on treason.”

Newt Gingrich has called for Obama to be impeached.

Speaker Boehner expects the House GOPers will step in to defend it.

And plenty of folks all over the right are lying that the President is no longer enforcing DOMA, which he quite notably is.

All of this got me thinking about the very gradual approach—the long haul—toward LGBT equality. In the scheme of the movement, this DOMA decision was not that big. It was two years overdue. It doesn’t undo the damage done by the anti-LGBT DOMA briefs. It doesn’t even necessarily expedite federal recognition of same-sex couples.

If anything, the call for heightened scrutiny is a much bigger deal, but no one’s talking about that.

But this one little decision has spurred a deluge from the right. Treason? Impeachment? Loss of all credibility? All the big guns for just this one little policy change.

Where are our big guns? Continue reading “Do DOMA Reactions Reveal Challenges of Tentative Progress?” »