Barack Obama, the
lanky and charismatic U.S. senator from Illinois, is a
national, if not global, phenomenon. He is being touted as
the miracle elixir for a nation divided along the
fault lines of race, religion, and class.
And also a nation
divided along the battle lines of Red State versus Blue
State.
Obama delivered a
visionary keynote speech at the Democratic National
Convention in 2004, when he stated, "There's
not a liberal America and a conservative America.
There's the United States of America. There's
not a black America and white America and Latino
America and Asian America. There's the United
States of America.... We worship an awesome God in the
blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking
around our libraries in the red states. We coach
Little League in the blue states and have gay friends
in the red states," made him America's great hope for
a better future.
As a supposedly
bipartisan politician who understands and reconciles
opposing views, and a non-doctrinal Christian whose personal
identity and life journey shaped his lens to include
those on the margins, why then, I ask, is this
presidential hopeful not united with lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer voters on the issue of marriage
equality?
"I was
reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected
official in a pluralistic society, but also as a
Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my
unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided,"
Obama wrote in his recent memoir, The Audacity of Hope.
But
Obama's audacity is not only his unwillingness to
support the issue, but also his misunderstanding and
misuse of the term "gay marriage." The
terminology "gay marriage" not only
stigmatizes and stymies our efforts for marriage
equality, but it also suggests that LGBT people's
marriages are or would be wholly different from those
of heterosexuals, thus altering its landscape, if not
annihilating the institution of marriage entirely.
But
Obama's remarks in a recent interview with Tim
Russert on NBC's Meet the Press spoke somewhat
encouragingly about granting LGBTQ couples not
marriage equality but certainly civil union rights.
However, having
lived outside of America during its turbulent decades of
the Jim Crow era and legal segregation, Obama may not know
on a visceral and lived experienced level what those
decades had been like for African-Americans.
But he ought to
know, as a civil rights attorney, that granting LGBTQ
Americans only the right to civil unions violates our full
constitutional right as well
as reinstitutionalizes the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court
decision Plessy v. Ferguson. As a result of that
decision, the "separate but equal"
doctrine became the rule of law until it was struck
down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
decision.
However, Obama
doesn't understand that regardless of one's
gender expression or sexual orientation, we want equal
status to be institutionalized within our marriages as
well.
Although not a
cradle Christian, Christianity became Obama's
newfound religious identity late in his life. And his
affinity to conservative Christian beliefs not only
informs his decision on the issue of marriage
equality, but it also solidifies his decision about us in a
community of believers like himself.
"I must
admit that I may have been inflected with society's
prejudices and predilections and attribute them to
God, " Obama writes in his book. "My
work with pastors and lay people deepened my resolve to lead
a public life. ... I had no community or shared
traditions in which to ground my most deeply held
beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized
themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared
their values and sang their songs."
Religion has
become a peculiar institution in the theater of American
politics. Although its Latin root, religio, means to
bind, it has served as a legitimate power in binding
people's shared hatred in both red states and blue
states, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Obama's
The Audacity of Hope is not a must-read for LGBT
voters because he fails to fully comprehend or
sincerely commit to the issue of social justice for
all Americans. He does not tackle head-on how the
religious rhetoric of this political era has played an
audacious role in discrimination against LGBT people,
leaving us with little to no hope, his rhetoric
included.
"In years
hence, I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of
history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad
Christian, " Obama writes.
As LGBT voters,
our job is neither to judge nor vote for Obama on whether
he is a good Christian. It is, however, for us to judge and
vote on whether he is a good statesman.
If he should run
for president, he wouldn't get my vote.