Some tidbits from the DADT decision

[owlmoose]

I hope you have all seen by now the most excellent news that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was found unconstitutional by a district court judge yesterday. News that was, for me, made all the more welcome by the fact that I didn't even know the law had been challenged in court, and so it came as a wonderful surprise

Comments

[oswulf]

For that matter one of the major players in overturning Prop 8 was a prominent republican. Gay rights may not hold a majority-share in the GOP just yet, and GOP politicians in general may remain skittish about the power of the Robertson/Palin fringe. But it's certainly not unknown and getting less so.

Meanwhile, I recently read an article that Beck's calling on the King legacy is nothing short of a liberal victory. It's good news when the intellectual heirs of George Wallace catch up to where King was 50 years ago. Maybe in 2060 the Sarah Palins of the age will be celebrating the pioneers of gay rights and condemning today's Muslim-bashing even as they defend the bigotries of tomorrow.

Meanwhile, with all the things I'm irate with Obama about, I don't think allowing his justice department to see the case through even makes the list.

[owlmoose]

It's not so much that I'm angry with Obama about this in particular, it's just that it's so symptomatic of the way he seems to work, with gay issues particularly. He says the right things and makes the grand gestures, but when it comes to the day-to-day operations of government, everything is painfully status quo. The same thing happened with same-sex marriage -- Obama claimed that he personally would like to see DoMA repealed, and then the Justice Department released a really heinous brief in defense of it. Not just a pro-forma "we're the government and have to defend our own laws" defense, but a vigorous defense. It just adds to my disheartenment.

I agree with the rest of what you're saying, though, especially about gay rights slowly becoming not being the wedge issue it used to be.

[oswulf]

Granted, he did run on the whole post-partisan working-together thing. But from day one it's been crystal clear that it won't work if the GOP is determined not to let it, that even the dying breed of moderate GOP politicians aren't willing to consider any kind of compromise. So instead, we've got Obama starting from a compromise position, then trying to compromise between that and the GOP position again and again until he's left with a shadow of a bill which he passes without any republican support anyway, we get a watered-down nothing of a piece of legislation and Glen Beck's still harping about what an extremist socialist Obama *clearly* is. :rolleyes

[3_2_1]

Heh.

This image, captioned with 'I can only assume that Hell has frozen over' was the top story on Reddit yesterday.

[owlmoose]

....that's not real, is it?

Because if it is, a) OMG and b) I really need to start paying more attention to the news.

[3_2_1]

It's real. It was a good day. :)