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 OPINIONALYSIS: POTUS Steps On His Achilles Heel Again
Typically, all presidents in every nation risk making a strategic or political error when a decision is rooted in their emotions, and those of a special political interest. Just as he's building a relatively stable momentum toward a likely and earned 2012 re-election, President Barack Obama decides to make a symbolic point in spite of a larger political and social reality. Though the civil and human rights of LGBT Americans are a noble and justified pursuit, there is a bigger picture and greater good that is being ignored — getting re-elected to insure these rights. As the so-called gay marriage goal is a comparatively wedge issue that is a volatile topic to a small percentage of voters across a diverse politicized population, President Obama would have a better advantage for re-election by prioritizing his symbolism and personal conscious with regard to the major common concerns of all Americans — the economy — and long festering socioeconomic instabilities. Instead POTUS 44 has been lured into making truly symbolic pseudo-policy statements based on the nagging demands of a politically vocal and financially influential minority. Though the President should be admired for taking a principled stance on an important social issue, greater harm will be done to LGBT Americans when it becomes the extra gallon of gasoline poured near the social and religious embers smoldering under a fragile bridge that's been built to make these civil rights ready for the larger part of America that is not lesbian, gay, bisexual, or of a transgender sexuality. The unfortunate reality of American politics, our social history, and the basic nature of most voters require leaders to make real change in a strategically realistic and time-sensitive manner despite the changing data from selective polling and statistics. The baseline truth is that most Americans can see little or no obvious and vested common interest in gay issues. The reason for buying-in to these minority demands has never been fully and clearly explained beyond the talking point of “we have a legal right to our sexuality like you.” That is a basic lesson from the 80-plus years of the Black civil rights movement that secured equal citizenship for African Americans — though the deeper discrimination that still hinders most Blacks is absolutely unavoidable due to obvious physical features that cannot be conveniently muted like a sexual preference. Even a particular unescorted President knows he can't easily get a taxi in many parts of New York City, a friendly cup of coffee in West Virginia, or presumed to not be suspect of anything during a casual nighttime walk through a neighborhood other than his own. Nor can nearly 300 years of legal race-based servitude, overt segregation, and socially sanctioned terror be used to justify why gay civil rights are similar to any Black American’s civil or human rights struggle. It is totally a apples and rocks comparison that history blind LGBT organizations use to leverage their agenda on the backs of African Americans — which becomes an unintentional insult. Since states will ultimately be the final arbiter of what actual marital rights are afforded their local LGBT and non-LGBT residents, the President's latest election-year pronouncement has no more legal impact or policy power than the opinion of his Vice President. That is the bottom line reality beyond any feel good accolades or partisan criticisms POTUS will generate for his courageous statements. If President Obama earns a second term — which is not inevitable due partly to his forcing of a premature social and sexual paradigm — then he may have to equally emphasize that his soul-searching on gay marriage is simply and strictly an independent view and not a new national policy most Americans don’t agree on. Not only will most voters respect him for having a definable personal opinion which is no less valid than their own about LGBT rights, but the slim majority of the electorate he will definitely need to get re-elected this November will know for sure that the larger socioeconomic challenges facing the vast majority of Americans on a daily basis are genuinely still his top priority for "change to believe in." Moreover, LGBT citizens should and will be more secure when the person in the Oval Office after Election Day 2012 is one that is effectively more attuned to protecting their basic civil rights — especially if most American voters begin to see gay marriage as much of a priority as they do. — Dennis Moore, POTUSworld.com Publisher (10 May 2012)
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