Triangulation, from Clinton to Obama, on Sexual Morality
The Harold Ford / Willie Horton legacy created enormous hurdles that President Obama had to overcome in the 2008 primaries and election. This tradition also creates extraordinarily cramped conditions that give the Obama administration relatively little room for political maneuver. Will we see courageous policy positions being taken by President Obama leadership where AIDS and homosexuality are concerned? Or will Obama feel compelled to play it safe? Will he borrow a page from Bill Clinton by “triangulating”: stealing a pet issue from the right-wing, claiming that he could stake out a centrist position on that issue, and masterfully staging a political showdown with his own leftist critics, such that he can burnish his bi-partisan credentials? Will Obama conjure up mythical threats, like teen pregnancy (recall Clinton’s baseless remarks in the lead up to welfare reform) or masturbation (recall the senseless firing of Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders), only to set up a moral victory: the courageous turn against the mighty tide of permissiveness, the daring and deeply principled reach across party lines for moral allies, and the building of a national consensus in favor of patriotic family values?
Writing in December 2008, I would have to say that the early indications from the Obama team are not entirely positive. On the one hand, there are some important feminist gains that have been made through Obama’s appointments. Sen. Clinton will bring her moderate yet pronounced concerns about women’s equality to her State Department agenda. Vice President Joe Biden has a solid leadership record with respect to the campaign against violence against women. Eric Holder seems poised to re-energize the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department, and Hilda Solis will, in all likelihood, draw upon her solid background in the labor movement in her leadership of the Labor Department. At the same time, feminist critics expressed disappointment when it became clear that only five of the twenty Secretary-level posts would go to women.1
LGBT advocates were stunned when the Obama transition team announced that Rev. Rick Warren would deliver the invocation at the January 2009 inauguration. Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in California, has opposed reproductive rights and championed the subordination of wives to their husbands. Arguing that the divorce revolution has gone too far, Warren supports divorce reform legislation that would only allow for the dissolution of marriage in cases of abandonment and infidelity; domestic violence and child abuse do not appear on this remarkably short list. When asked about his opinions about same-sex marriage, he quickly reached for analogies with incest, polygamy, and pedophilia.2
Since Rev. Warren had openly affirmed these views, the Obama team must have known exactly what it was getting into when they tapped him for the invocation. Is President Obama taking his feminist and LGBT supporters for granted, on the theory that they have nowhere else to go, while he scores points with evangelical centrists by reaching out to Warren? Did he deliberately seek to provoke a bit of criticism from the left, albeit on a carefully chosen symbolic issue with no serious policy consequences, in order to solidify his bipartisan reputation? Will he make moral issues his favorite political site to play the Clintonite triangulation game, and will women and the LGBT community be asked to pay the price, again and again?
There are several sites where feminist and LGBT advocates will be concentrating their lobbying efforts during the Obama administration. The American foreign aid prohibitions for agencies that offer abortion services could be immediately eliminated through an executive order. As Secretary of State, Sen. Hillary Clinton could rally support in the Senate for a U.S. signature to, and ratification of, the international human rights agreement relating to gender justice: the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Strong legislation is needed to rebuild reproductive rights. The Obama administration, with the assistance of an almost filibuster-proof Congress, should be able to rescind the Hyde Amendment that blocks the federal government from spending Medicaid funds on abortion. Where the Bush administration created a situation in which medical personnel, such as pharmacists, enjoy the authority to stop women from obtaining contraception, President Obama could make it clear that the health care system ought to empower women to control their bodies. As always, every single one of Obama’s judicial appointments will be closely scrutinized with respect to his or her positions on reproductive rights and LGBT equality. On gender justice in the workplace, the Obama administration could prioritize the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and legislation establishing comparable worth standards.
On LGBT rights, the Obama administration should compensate for its opposition to same-sex marriage by rallying Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In one sense, DOMA is little more than homophobic symbolism. And repealing DOMA should be palatable to Obama insofar as DOMA merely underlines the states’ existing constitutional authority to establish their own family codes. DOMA grants each state the right to disregard the legal status of the marriages for same-sex couples that are conducted in other states. Although this part of DOMA has yet to be put to the test in court, it is arguably redundant since the states already have the constitutional authority to deviate from their standard Full Faith and Credit obligation on public policy grounds. It seems likely that the most important developments on same-sex marriage will take place in the state courts and legislatures.
The repeal of DOMA would nevertheless stir up controversy. Although brute bigotry against homosexual equality is on the decline,3 even a symbolic gesture by the Obama administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership would be met with stiff opposition from the Republican Party. In addition, DOMA is not entirely symbolic. It also defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the purposes of interpreting all federal laws. In other words, lesbian and gay male couples who seek to protect or to enforce the same rights that married heterosexual couples enjoy under various federal laws, such as immigration and naturalization laws, bankruptcy procedures, and income tax rules, lack the power to do so.
Where the House of Representatives under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) failed to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the fall of 2008, both chambers could make the passage of a new version a top priority. ENDA originally provided protection in the workforce for both homosexuals and transgender persons, yet in a futile attempt to round up votes, leading House Democrats stripped all references to gender identity from the bill. Speaker Pelosi could ensure that the new ENDA provides adequate protection for transgender Americans—and Speaker Pelosi and House Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NE) could also work closely with the Obama administration to repeal the notorious “don’t ask, don’t tell” prohibition against homosexuals in the military.
- “Why some Women’s Groups are Miffed at Obama,” CNN.com 22 December 2008. [↩]
- See Katha Pollitt on The Rachel Maddow Show 24 December 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rwk845iMXY or http://kathapollitt.blogspot.com. [↩]
- Alan Yang, Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, From Wrongs to Rights: Public Opinion on Gay and Lesbian Americans Moves Toward Equality, 1973-1999 (Washington, D.C., 1999). [↩]
