State of the Union: Sea Change?
By Jason Cianciotto, Senior Fellow, Policy Institute, January 24, 3:00 pm
After watching the State of the Union address, I realized that the most important thing about the speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans was what was NOT in it.
For the past three years, President Bush has used this speech as an opportunity to speak out against marriage equality through veiled language about the “tradition” or “sanctity” of marriage. This time, there was absolutely no mention of it.
The difference can’t be overstated. It represents a sea change in the way he and other conservatives are communicating to their allies on the religious right.
This is another manifestation of the growing split in the Republican Party over “contentious” social issues such as same-sex marriage and stem cell research, a split that will only expand as the 2008 presidential election draws nearer. In the meantime, I think that anti-gay political and religious leaders don’t quite know what to do about this new cold shoulder from their party of choice.
On the day of the speech, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) fired two warning shots over the bow of the president’s ship. He included a message in the daily FRC member e-newsletter in which he claimed that there were a number of “pro-family” issues the president should address in this new Congress. He also published an “Open Letter to President Bush” calling for attention to the social issues that are the hallmark of the religious right, including opposition to marriage equality.
This message came out just after we learned that Rep. Marilyn Musgrave and Sen. Wayne Allard, the sponsors of the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, do not plan to reintroduce the amendment in the coming year.
As others have proclaimed, what a difference an election makes! It’s amazing that Perkins is now writing to the president as if he is an outsider.
I can’t help but view this as a window of opportunity for LGBT Americans, now that “family values” rhetoric seems to have, at least for the moment, moved off the table.
Has attacking LGBT equality been pushed to the back burner? Supporters of marriage equality can celebrate the fact that their personal relationships are no longer being used as anti-gay fodder in the president’s most important speech of the year. Those who’ve criticized the gay rights movement’s focus on marriage over the past few years can celebrate that important issues like access to health care are no longer taking a backseat to calculated attempts to divide the electorate.
Of course, this doesn’t mean progressives can rest on their laurels; there are other things the president didn’t say. For example, his new domestic priorities fail to help Americans with the greatest need, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender. His plan to make health care more affordable and accessible doesn’t address the fact that Americans who are unable to afford insurance in the first place will have no use for a retroactive tax deduction. And what about the fact that I have to pay taxes on the health benefits my husband receives from my employer because our relationship is not legally recognized by the federal government?
Where is a revision of the federally funded abstinence-only education, which promotes ignorance and fuels a continuing AIDS epidemic, or protection in the so-called “No Child Left Behind Act” for our LGBT youth, who are regularly bullied and harassed out of public schools? Is President Bush aware that, according to his own government statistics, up to 1.6 million youth run away or are homeless annually and that more than half a million of those are LGBT youth?
So yes, “family values” rhetoric has fallen off the edge for this moment, and that’s good — but at the same time, we must remember that concern for equality for our community isn’t even on the president’s (or his conservative cohorts’) table.
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Wednesday, 1/24/2007, 9:238 PM (EST) “Supporters of marriage equality can celebrate the fact that their personal relationships are no longer being used as anti-gay fodder in the president’s most important speech of the year.” I was pleasantly surprised to hear no mention of “the sanctity of marriage” in the State of the Union. For the past six years I thought I had hallucinated the fact that the United States was established with a separation between church and state. Whatever personal god people believe in, the most important unifying quality between religions is that we are to love our neighbors despite or because of our differences. For the government to define marriage as anything but a commitment of love and loyalty between two consenting adults, is not merely immoral but entirely inappropriate. While it is not a complete victory, it is certainly a step in the right direction that the president is no longer attacking the LGBT community in this regard based on his own conservative and exclusive views. Perhaps now with the democratic Congress we can hope to progress further in the ongoing struggle for equality. S. Haring Thursday, 1/25/2007, 5:15 PM (EST) Mr. Cianciotto makes an great point about the president's recent address. The differences between this year’s State of the Union Address and the president's previous speeches are so dramatic in some cases that I found myself wondering, “who is this man, and what has he done with the president?” I would like to think that Mr. Bush has given us insight into his true, personal convictions in that while he continued to press for his dubious and highly unpopular military strategy and fruitless educational program, he readily dropped all references to “traditional marriage” or “family values,” and all but the most inoffensive religious references. I hope — somewhat cynically — that we have witnessed the passing of a politically convenient “conviction” gone by the wayside in the absence of an imagined “mandate” from the ring-wing masses. R. Dalrymple |
