Grace by Cody Keenan

Author:Cody Keenan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

2

IN 2004, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS SOMETHING REPUBLICANS RAN against and Democrats ran from. Just a decade later, same-sex marriage was something that Democrats, and even a few Republicans, ran on. When Obama took office in 2009, it was legal in two states. By 2015, it was legal in thirty-seven plus D.C. It was an extraordinary evolution in a relatively short time.

Same-sex marriage was an evolution for Obama too. In 2008, when running for president, he’d endorsed civil unions and all the benefits that come with them but said that he was not in favor of gay marriage. To support civil unions was the unsatisfying but safe option, one that would prevent the need to fight what was still framed as a religious battle. I always thought—but never wanted to ask and find out—that he’d compromised his personal views for political expediency. For someone proud that he’d generally said what he thought, I assumed that it gnawed at him. I know Obama’s decision disheartened, even disillusioned, his LGBTQ staffers.

Once in office, though, he enacted important policies that moved the ball forward on LGBTQ issues. The biggest successes were ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and seizing the opportunity to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court. Along with those came a volley of progress: signing a hate-crimes bill into law, lifting a Reagan-era ban on allowing foreigners with HIV to travel to the United States, adding LGBTQ protections to the Violence Against Women Act, prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, requiring hospitals receiving federal funding to treat LGBTQ patients the same as everyone else. Finally, thanks to the ACA, insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to LGBTQ Americans.

When it came to marriage equality, the most important dynamic in Obama’s mind was the generational tide. His own daughters and their friends had grown up in a country where differences in sexual orientation weren’t a big deal. It didn’t make sense to them that same-sex couples would be treated differently. People coming out—to their parents, to their friends—had changed perspectives on a massive scale. It’s one reason the country moved so far so fast—people listened to their kids. I couldn’t imagine that coming out to one’s parents would ever be easy—but I had to believe that most parents found it harder to remain homophobic after their child said “This is who I am.”

Prejudice and bigotry would never fully vanish. But when Obama framed his shift in a 2010 interview by saying “attitudes evolve, including mine,” lots of people could sympathize.

And there was a marriage equality strategy in the works. Not around whether Obama would come out in support of marriage equality but when—before or after the 2012 reelection campaign.

But then Vice President Joe Biden blew up that strategy like the Kool-Aid Man smashing through a wall. In May of 2012, a week or two after Obama officially kicked off the reelection campaign, Biden was asked about Obama’s “evolution.” And in his typically

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.