Sen. Barack Obama recently sat down with a homosexual news service to discuss his plans to advance the homosexual agenda.
Obama first assured the homosexual community that he has nothing but love for "gay issues," after the interviewer talked about his silence on the matter.
"I don’t think it’s fair to say "silence" on gay issues. The gay press may feel like I’m not giving them enough love."Obama went on to speak about what he hopes to accomplish on the homosexual agenda check list if elected to the highest office in the land-including eliminating "don't ask, don't tell" and passing a transgender-inclusive, Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
"But I haven’t been silent on gay issues. What’s happened is, I speak oftentimes to gay issues to a public general audience. When I spoke at Ebenezer Church for King Day, I talked about the need to get over the homophobia in the African-American community; when I deliver my stump speeches routinely I talk about the way that antigay sentiment is used to divide the country and distract us from issues that we need to be working on, and I include gay constituencies as people that should be treated with full honor and respect as part of the American family."
"So I actually have been much more vocal on gay issues to general audiences than any other presidential candidate probably in history."
"I have been clear about my interest in including gender identity in legislation, but I’ve also been honest with the groups that I’ve met with that it is a heavy lift through Congress. We’ve got some Democrats who are willing to vote for a noninclusive bill, but we lose them on an inclusive bill, and we just may not be able to generate the votes. I don’t know. And obviously, my goal would be to get the strongest possible bill -- that’s what I’ll be working for."He was asked by the interviewer if he was referring to the Defense of Marriage Act, which seeks to protect the sanctity of marriage and ensures protection of a individual state's right not to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. "Absolutely," he said, "and I for a very long time have been interested in repeal of DOMA."
"The third thing I believe I can get done is in dealing with federal employees, making sure that their benefits, that their ability to transfer health or pension benefits the same way that opposite-sex couples do, is something that I’m interested in making happen and I think can be done with some opposition, some turbulence, but I think we can get that done."
The interviewer also spoke about an event in South Carolina where Obama allowed Donnie McClurkin to "get up onstage for a sort of antigay rant." He offered the following explanation.
"I tell you what -- my campaign is premised on trying to reach as many constituencies as possible and to go into as many places as possible, and sometimes that creates discomfort or turbulence. If you’re segmenting your base into neat categories and constituency groups and you never try to bring them together and you just speak to them individually -- so I keep the African-Americans neatly over here and the church folks neatly over there and the LGBT community neatly over there -- then these kinds of issues don’t arise."Obama speaks of "uniting" the country but his comments make it clear that he prefers to separate his audience into categories and adjust his actions accordingly.
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Ref:
-Picture of Obama supporters in Phoenix, taken from Obama's official website at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/jcitron/gGC52s
-full interview published at http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid53285.asp, linked from Obama's official campaign web site at http://pride.barackobama.com/page/content/lgbthome as of 05/02/08
