esrosedotblog

This is a great time line detail of Obama's conversion on gay marriage.

How the President Got to "I Do" On Same Sex Marriage"

It is hard to read without some teary eyes.

As much as I have loved Obama I have always felt, and still do, that he is retro on the rights of gays. Too often it has been a political football but fundamentally, I believe, if he had not had moral objections to my rights as a gay man he would have been out front on this issue from the beginning.

In this regard, Obama has been a grave disappointment.

And while he has now come out (so to speak) as in favor of my rights he is still not unequivocal.

The man to admire on this issue is Joe Biden who led from the heart and through a so called gaffe pushed the Administration into beginning their slow and reluctant embrace of true equal rights.

My view of Obama on this matter is partly one of racial resentment. I do believe that blacks are, by and large, more inclined to look down their noses at gays from a high moral perch and fail to see any similarity between their own situation and ours.

Of course there are many exceptions but in general I believe it is true. I do not think that it is a matter of "now we have ours, fuck you" but more that many blacks retain a strong stream of fundamentalist religious belief that is awash with homophobia. I know a few stories of gay black men and they are witnesses to this.

In the end, it does not matter except in time but time is the great divider between those of us who have achieved a measure of freedom as a result of affluence or education or sheer cussedness. Today, as this process has slowed down way too much, young men and women still suffer for their identities. Ignorance and intolerance still abide in enough hearts that the President could have made a difference. Still could. If he would get off his own moral perch or, perhaps, his own fear of his own sexual identity, the last bastion for most black men who need to conserve their pride in their own manhood. Insecurity is a powerful force.

Maybe I am wrong about this. I am not a shrink and I do not even know Obama. But I know straight men, straight black men, and he is not atypical of a particular strain who still cannot deal with this issue without a personal quirk getting into the way.

Thank God for Joe Biden who stood tall and still leads from his heart as well as his head. Or maybe a little more of the heart. A commodity which is in short supply in Washington DC.

Labels: Barack Obama, gay marriage, Joe Biden