This morning as I was driving to work listening to the local “Progressive” talk radio, I got another glimpse of where President Obama is maybe heading in the wrong direction. I hesitate to spend a lot of time criticizing him due to the deluge of criticism he receives no matter what he does from the extreme “right” – mainly what’s left of the Republican party. However, I keep telling myself that no matter how “nasty” those guys (the Republicans that is) get, I’m not going to rubber stamp this President just as I wouldn’t rubber stamp his predecessor. I often feel like I’m “beating a dead horse” so to speak, because I know Obama’s not listening and I know much of what I’m probably going to say tonight has been said, almost ad nauseum, by me and others. It’s just that I feel there are some mistakes being made that will linger on for a long time if “we” don’t get through to our President (and soon).

The “host” of the radio show I listen to is an openly gay man who, understandably, has a vested interest in all the “gay rights” issues in the news of late. The repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in the military is high on this guy’s (and mine, when I think about it) list of priorities that he’d like to see happen immediately if not sooner. Personally, I don’t have a huge investment in the gay agenda due to the fact it doesn’t personally affect me, but when I think about it, in the 21st century for our nation to be discriminating against any group makes no sense AT ALL! I have to be honest here, I live in a very small, conservative area and don’t get out much :o). When I go to the “big city” – which for me is Portland, Oregon – I get real uncomfortable when I’m around gay men or lesbians who are openly being affectionate to one another. Upon reflection, it doesn’t affect me in any way – and I’m reminded, as a Christian, “Don’t judge, lest ye be judged.” So, personally, I’ve come to the point that I believe when our Bill of Rights says “All” it means “All” and it’s time that we “All” accept that. We need to start living up to our ideals – IN EVERY RESPECT!

So, the topic this morning was how the Obama administration’s Justice Department had made a brief last week supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the many bills signed by Bill Clinton that should give “liberals” pause as to his “agenda,” which prevents gays from being married in one state and then moving to another state and having the marriage recognized. While it’s truly hard for me to understand why two men would want to get married (I’m just trying to be transparent here) – this law seems absurd to me. However, I “get” the argument that the Justice Department has to defend the laws as they are written and it’s up to Congress to change them, but I do agree with the radio host (I believe his name is Carl Wolfson) that the language used in their “brief” was unnecessary and offensive. I’m paraphrasing, but if I heard them right, the Justice department compared gay marriage between two consenting adults to things like pedophelia, incest, and I can’t remember what else. I also “get” that President Obama can’t be everywhere and his administration consists of thousands of employees so I’m sure he didn’t “vet” the wording of the brief, but he’d better get a “handle” on this one quickly. Obama made a lot of clear promises during his campaign which he’s not apparently keeping – and I’m going to give some examples (but I have to make my main point first).

What this issue brought to mind was how virtually none of us are immune from hypocrisy. In President Obama’s case, he needs to be very careful, because there is a significant number of Americans who will not support him regardless of his decisions because the sad reality is there are still a lot of racists in America – I’m estimating somewhere approaching 25% of the population. So President Obama must be judiscious in living up to his promises to the constituency which elected him to office. Here’s the rub with what I heard this morning – and it’s not the first time I’ve been “rubbed” in this manner by President Obama. His Justice department makes the claim, supported by his spokesperson, that they are obligated to enforce the laws as they are written. In this case, even though they don’t agree with the Defense of Marriage Act, they have to support it in court until Congress changes the law. OK, I GET THAT, BUT WHAT ABOUT TORTURE?

If they are going to be so diligent in supporting a law which they apparently disagree with, WHY CAN’T THEY ENFORCE ONE THAT THEY SUPPOSEDLY AGREE WITH? This makes not a bit of sense to me, and it’s causing me to re-evaluate my support for our President. I’ve stopped giving him money, I’ve written him about this (with no response – I get responses from Republicans when I write to them), I even talked the guy from MoveOn.org’s ear off the other day when he called soliciting money – pointing out that I don’t understand why MoveOn is seemingly “rubber stamping” the President. I told him the same thing – no more money from me as long as Dick Cheney is allowed to go around on national TV and “brag” about committing war crimes, IN MY NAME (and yours too, if you want to know the truth about this), and President Obama stubbornly “looks the other way.” His justice department has been in court now on at least two occasions defending the indefensible – the Defense of Marriage Act mentioned above, and they also have taken the Bush “States Secrets” defense to court in defending the warrantless wiretapping that went on during the Bush years (AND IS STILL GOING ON TODAY – OBAMA IS TAKING OWNERSHIP OF THAT AS WELL!)

But they can’t bring themselves to prosecute the most heinous acts of our government in my lifetime. That, I DON’T GET! But, talk about hypocrisy – claiming they have to defend the laws on the one hand, and then essentially saying, because the crimes were committed by a President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, head of CIA, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and all their “legal” counsel – IT APPARENTLY DOESN’T COUNT! Despite all of Obama’s rhetoric to the contrary, I’m taking this to mean that gay people can just buck up and wait until the system plays itself out, and if Congress ever gets its act together, he’ll sign a bill giving this group of people the same rights that everyone else enjoys. Coming from a person of African descent, I find this logic a bit startling – and, then on top of that, he’s a constitutional expert who taught constitutional law at one of the most prestigious universities in our great nation.

We have scores of decorated military personell being “fired” from the various branches of the service – some of them irreplaceable due to their ability to speak fluent Arabic – during this time in our history when we’re bogged down in two occupations in countries where being able to speak Arabic is a HUGE PLUS! – BECAUSE THEY TOLD THE TRUTH, FINALLY. My dearest friends have a son who has “come out” as “gay” and, while I’m personally struggling to understand this, it grieves my heart thinking that he is being discriminated against because of who he is. President Obama, from my understanding, could change most of this – by at least placing a moretoriam on enforcement of these laws like the absurd “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” which is weakening our already stretched military, with a stroke of a pen by executive order. Curiously, President Obama chooses to enforce laws against gays and not enforce laws against torture!