You're reading: Gay activists laud Obama speech, now want action

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama's emphatic gay-rights advocacy in his inaugural address thrilled many activists. Yet almost immediately came the questions and exhortations as to what steps should be taken next.

“I was very
moved,” said Jon Davidson, legal director of the gay-rights group Lambda
Legal. “But there’s a lot more to do in the four years to come. …
It’s not like everything is fine.”

Items on the activists’ wish
list include appointment of America’s first openly gay Cabinet member,
steps to curtail unequal treatment of same-sex couples in the military
and an executive order barring federal contractors from workplace
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The paramount
priority for many, however, is same-sex marriage. Never before Monday
had an inaugural address conveyed support for marriage equality, and
activists now hope the Obama administration will take concrete steps to
follow up, including escalated engagement in pending Supreme Court
cases.

“Why wouldn’t they decide to stand on the right side of history?” Davidson asked.

Obama
broached the broader issues in his speech by classifying the Stonewall
gay-rights riots of 1969 as a civil rights milestone on par with those
in the struggles on behalf of blacks and women.

Then, alluding to
marriage, he said, “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers
and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are
truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must
be equal as well.”

Richard Socarides, a former Clinton White House adviser on gay rights, termed the address “perhaps the most important gay-rights speech in American history.”

Among
Obama’s in-person audience were the Supreme Court justices who will be
hearing oral arguments in March on two same-sex marriage cases. They
will be considering both California’s constitutional ban on gay marriage
and provisions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act denying federal
recognition to same-sex marriages, which are now legal in nine states
and the District of Columbia.

The Obama administration already has
said those DOMA provisions are unconstitutional and is no longer
defending them, leaving that task to a legal team hired by Republicans
in the House.

Gay-rights activists say the Justice Department
could take further steps in that case, notably by filing papers with the
high court aimed at placing an even higher burden on DOMA’s defenders
to justify the government’s unequal treatment of same-sex couples.

Activists
also hope the administration will file a friend-of-the-court brief in
the California case, joining with those who argue that the 2008
Proposition 8 ballot measure banning gay marriage in the state violated
constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Fred Sainz of the
Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group, said filing such a
brief would be a “natural extension of the inaugural remarks,” which he
depicted as “an incredibly eloquent equal-protection argument.”

Political
repercussions will probably be discussed further before the White House
makes a final decision on the Supreme Court cases, Sainz said. But he
suggested the administration had realized — after Obama’s re-election —
that advocating for same-sex marriage is “both morally right and
politically right.”

Obama has long portrayed himself as a
gay-rights supporter and played a key role in ending the “don’t ask,
don’t tell” policy in 2011 so gays could serve openly in the military.
But only last year, after what he described as a process of “evolving,”
did Obama come out publicly in favor of gay marriage, and even now
legally married gay couples in the military are denied some important
benefits accorded to heterosexual married couples.

On Tuesday, the
White House directed to the Justice Department questions about whether
the administration would file a friend-of-the-court brief in the
Proposition 8 case. The department declined to comment.

Meanwhile,
the defenders of Prop 8 filed their opening brief with the Supreme
Court on Tuesday, arguing that the justices should allow public and
political debate over same-sex marriage to continue rather than impose a
judicial solution.

Other opponents of same-sex marriage took note of Obama’s inaugural remarks, in some cases with alarm and anger.

“Their
implications are morally devastating for the definition of marriage,”
wrote Denny Burk, a professor of biblical studies at the undergraduate
arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Burk, in a blog posting, contended that Obama’s rationale for legalizing
marriage for gays could be extended to polygamists as well.

Brian
Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, which has campaigned
against same-sex marriage in many states, criticized Obama’s decision to
raise the topic in his address.

“A presidential inauguration
should be a time for the nation to come together,” Brown said. “Instead
President Obama chose to voice his support for a radical agenda advanced
by some of his biggest campaign contributors to redefine marriage for
everyone.”