Disregarding the Gays

The LA Times has an editorial today, with the subheader, “The president has done precious little to advance gay rights, despite campaign promises.” And they are right. Markos snarks about how the administration is granting “relocation rights” to same-sex partners of federal employees, rather than take on the Defense of Marriage Act or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, both of which he campaigned against. Since being elected, Obama has more or less punted the DADT ball to congress while his Justice Department wrote a memo defending DoMA.

Everyone  understands that Obama is a ruthless pragmatist unwilling to sacrifice political capital on gay rights. But this isn’t the 1990s and there isn’t really an plausible scenerio in which a gay rights battle emerges that sinks health care or cap-and-trade. The administration should just step up, do the right thing, and get this whole controversy over with. Until then, gay rights activists will continue being pissed off at Obama, and frankly, they have every right to be.