As you surely already know, President Obama came out of the closet last week as totally gay — for gay marriage, anyway. Obama’s support for marriage equality had been, let’s face it, an open secret of sorts. I mean, everybody knew that he supported it, but he pretended to be all conflicted about the issue, going so far as to say he believed marriage was a one-man, one-woman operation.
This, in spite of the fact that back in 1996 he told Outlines, a gay newspaper, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” Needless to say, Obama’s painfully slow “evolution” on the issue was a sore spot for many lesbian and gay folks.
Hell, even after he said publicly and on purpose into a TV camera that marriage equality is cool with him, it’s still a sore spot for some. The Log Cabin Republicans were quick to piss all over the announcement and the Internet was atwitter with grumblings about the whole thing being too little, too late.
But I say, screw all that. The bottom line is, for the first time in history, we have a sitting president who acknowledges that our families not only exist, but they are valid and should be afforded equal treatment enshrined in law. And this is huge.
Oh, but that Newsweek cover with the neon rainbow halo over Obama’s head with the headline, “The First Gay President”? That shit is crazy. Obama is no more gay than Bill Clinton is black.
Still, with Obama giving the thumbs-up to marriage equality and talking about repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, the choice between him and Mitt Romney is starker than ever.
After Obama’s pro-gay-marriage announcement, Romney told the audience during a commencement address at Liberty University, “Culture matters. As fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debate. So it is today with the enduring institution of marriage. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.”
On May 10 Romney said, “And if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship or even to adopt a child — in my state, individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children. In my view, that’s something that people have a right to do. But to call that marriage is something that in my view is a departure from the real meaning of that word.”
The very next day Romney backpedaled, saying that he was just saying that same-sex couples adopting kids together was something that does happen, not something that should.
And then there’s that horrifying Washington Post report about Romney bullying a kid everybody thought was gay in high school, complete with an episode recalled by “five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another.” Evoking that terrifying scene from “Mommie Dearest,” Romney hacked the kid’s hair off with scissors while Romney’s friends held him down.
Oh, and don’t forget that Romney’s foreign policy advisor, Richard Grenell, was given the ol’ heave ho after right-wing conservatives pitched a fit because Grenell is a homo.
It’s no wonder that Bill White, a “well-known, openly gay supporter of Mitt Romney,” according to CNN, switched teams. White, who now supports Obama, even demanded Romney refund his big campaign contribution. Ouch.
My guess is that White isn’t the only LGBT defector. And with good reason. Even this early in the 2012 election, it’s pretty clear that any LGBT person who votes Romney might as well beat themselves with a wire hanger.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.