The Gays in 2012

Gay rights are a tough issue to gauge in terms of their impact on a Presidential election, partly because the issue doesn’t necessarily come down to the President in most cases.  Gay rights were a stated part of Obama’s political agenda during the 2008 campaign, and his administration has said that it plans to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that basically states that you can be gay in the military, as long as no one knows about it.

If people do know about it, you will be removed from the military.  This is the one part of the gay rights agenda that Obama has some control over, unlike gay marriage, which is determined on a state-by-state basis.  Obama has stated that he is against don’t ask/don’t tell, but funds have been allocated to enforcing the policy in 2010.  So it doesn’t look like the policy is going to end anytime soon.  A poll done by CNN found that 80% of Americans don’t have any problem with their being open gays in the military.

Opponents of the policy say that there’s no reason to hold onto it, as there are plenty of other functional armies in the developing world that allow open homosexuality, but supporters of the policy say it would be similar to allowing men and women in the military to live together and would cause a breakdown of morale.

You’ve probably seen those videos of servicemen saying, “I can’t be in battle and having one of my guys looking at me thinking, oh, you know, you’ve got a pretty mouth,” or something equally as absurd.  I know explosions are always getting me hot and bothered.

What the debate really centers around for gays is that they can’t talk to their partners on the phone or via the computer because both of those things are monitored by the military for security purposes.  And since the military doesn’t recognize the gays, they can’t recognize the gay partners, so if a soldier is wounded or killed in battle, their partners will never find out about it.  And it IS actively enforced:  13,000 servicemen and women have been dismissed after being outed.

The question is, as always, what effect this will have on the election, and the sad truth is:  probably not much.  But maybe enough.  Candidate Obama seemed a lot more progressive than President Obama, and the young army the President mobilized for his 2008 campaign might dry up if he doesn’t attack certain idealistic battlegrounds that were espoused by progressives.

The middle of the road stance is to support don’t ask/don’t tell, and it seems like Obama just doesn’t want to spend any political capital on this issue right now.  He’s got to deal with Afghanistan, health care, homeland security, and finding a new home for the Gitmo prisoners.  Actually, that last one could be a major check in his column if he pulls it off.  It will be one of the campaign promises he really followed through on to the progressives.  The thing is, he needs to keep doing it.  The support Obama got in 2008 came from his platform, which wasn’t exactly middle of the road.  By appealing to a jaded and somewhat apathetic left, he was able to energize certain voter blocs which typically don’t vote for members of one of the two parties.

It was his image as a symbol of the zeitgeist that won him the election.  Not being a moderate.

Other gay issues may come up, but as we said, gay marriage isn’t something he’s going to push for, as he has supported the Defense of Marriage Act, even though he admits it’s discriminatory.  You can only go so far.  So the only real step Obama can take for gay rights is to appeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.

A side note:  this has almost no bearing on votes for the Republicans.  The people and the anti-gay camp generally are already voting Republican, and the repeal of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” won’t change a damn thing there.  It can only lose Obama votes from the left.  It won’t gain him any from the right.