Do the Right Thing

The Advocate has an interesting article on San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom, this month. It covers the reason he decided to allow gay marriages on February 12, 2004.

He had just returned from George Bush's inauguration in which Bush included in his speech his party's spew about the "sanctity of marriage" and protection of America from "activist" judges.

He told his staff to find a way to allow gays and lesbians to marry. They initially thought that they would marry a few couples. No one expected 4,000 couples to line up to be married in the one month that same-sex marriage was allowed in San Francisco.

The California Supreme Court is now deciding the fallout of the San Francisco marriages and whether the prohibition of marrage for same-sex couples is constitutional. The City of San Francisco is one of the parties in the combined litigation.

One of the arguments that the justices mentioned was whether the time is right to consider the question or whether gays and lesbians should be made to wait until the rest of the country catches up. Newsom's response is:

“When is the right time? There never is a right time. Mid-term congressional election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to take back the House. The next presidential election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to possibly win. It’s never the right time. We need to get over these stale arguments. If you believe in something, do it. And do it with conviction. And if you screw up, learn from it, admit your mistakes and failures, and move forward in a more thoughtful way.”

Newsom suffered political fall-out within his own party from his decision. Barack Obama asked him to throw fund raisers for him, but refused to be photographed with him in 2006 and again this election cycle. Other Democrats did much the same and worse following the 2004 marriages. Hillary Clinton is one of the few Democrats to have had pictures taken with Gavin Newsom.

It appears to gays and lesbians that Democrats think that they are fine for fund-raising, but they don't want to take any political risk where gay and lesbian issues are concerned. In demonstration of their lack of competence of gay and lesbian issues, they were shocked at the backlash from the LGBT community when the House passed a bill to extend the definition of hate crimes to include gays, lesbians and bisexuals, but not transgendered persons.

Barney Frank, the gay Congressman who sponsored the bill, felt that getting the vote through on 3 of the 4 groups was progress. It was politics over substance and the LGBT community knew it. There was no way the bill would get approved by the Senate nor signed by the President. It was a meaningless gesture and that was spoiled by Frank's and the Democratic majority's willingness to throw the transgender community to the wolves.

What the LGBT community understood was that it was another example of Democrats' political expediency by offering a meaningless bone to the community before a election fundraisers began. It would have been better to do nothing than to try to split the LGBT community's unity.

It is ironic that Republicans can stubbornly stand by their principles, at least on social issues, but Democrats continue to be moral cowards. Both Clinton and Obama do not support gay marriage equality for the LGBT community. They haven't the political cojones to deliver on what they profess to be one of the chief principles of their party: equality for minority groups.

Even as Obama talked about racial issues this past week, I couldn't overlook his moral cowardice on gay issues. It sounds hauntingly familiar to his fear of being photographed with Gavin Newsom.

Obama has never appeared at gay functions, so far as I can find. I can't think of a single photograph with him and any group of gay people. Instead, he sends his staff to talk to the gay community. He never addresses the community directly.

He claims to be supportive of gay rights. His campaign policies are perhaps a tad better than Clinton's. But is it just talk? With the Rev. Wright debate this past fortnight, gays and lesbians are reminded that most black churches have not been supportive of gays and lesbians, much less their rights.

In contrast, while Clinton doesn't support full gay marriage, she often appears with gay people and at gay functions. There isn't that nagging question of moral cowardice as with Obama, except on the gay marriage issue alone. She is politically expedient, but she has always been there to support gay rights in the Senate in every other respect. That is why gays and lesbians have continued to support Clinton over Obama even if we wished she had the cojones to support gay marriage.

All the more reason to enjoy the refreshing breeze from someone like Gavin Newsom who believes in doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. How sad it is that it used to be the rule instead of the exception in the American polity.