Obama Offends Gay People

by Melissa Clouthier | December 18, 2008 3:43 pm

Leftist bloggers are all upset [1]over Mr. Obama’s choice for the inaugural prayer. The gay community is crying foul[2]. Why?

Barack Obama said consistently throughout the election that he’s against gay marriage. Wink. Wink. I didn’t believe him. Neither did his voters[3]. I still don’t believe him. Especially after his acceptance speech in Chicago when he spoke of rights of all people and pointedly mentioned gays.

Picking Rick Warren to give the prayer is throwing a “clever” bone[4] to the moderate middle and the Christian conservatives. Remember, people, 85% of American citizens believe in God. Nearly 100% besides the fringe lefties view Rick Warren and Joel Olsteen as the Wal-Mart of religion–everyone shops there, everyone buys. View them as red-pronged devils if you want, but anyone who knows about the evangelical movement knows that the purges won’t come from these mega churches.

Here’s another thing: blacks are overwhelmingly against gay marriage[5]. How do the Prop 8 folks think that law passed when a 1/2 black man was on the ticket? Black people had to vote for the President and then go and choose to vote for Prop 8. It wasn’t a passive choice. The fact is that most blacks do not view gay marriage as a civil rights issue. So gays can get all hot and bothered about the mean Mormons and evil evangelicals but there’s a whole race of people who know oppression when they see it and they don’t see it.

What is really offensive to me, though, is that I don’t believe that Obama is against gay marriage at all. The prayer deal is no skin off his nose. It’s a win-win. He appeals to the vast middle and burns little political capital to do so. Oh sure, the gay brigade is peeved, but their rancor will calm down once they see the gay-friendly policies roll out of this administration. And then it will be the stupid moderate middle who will be shocked. But Barack Obama had Rick Warren pray! But Barack Obama said he was against gay marriage!

Uh huh. Mr. Obama has said many things to get himself elected and he’ll say and do many more things to seem appealing. But the real proof is in the pudding and the pudding ain’t the prayer at the inauguration. It’s symbolic. Remember Maya Angelou boring the entire country with her inaugural poetry? It was symbolic. Black people swooned and saw themselves in Bubba. Bah. Bill Clinton was seizing the moment to make a statement. A year or two later he was slashing welfare benefits.

A year or two from now, we’ll find out what Barack Obama really believes because we’ll have actions to judge him by and I don’t mean the kind of symbolic emptiness that Rick Warren represents. We’ll see proof of his beliefs whatever they might be. The fact is, no one knows for certain, right now, what that means.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com[6]