Homosexual Unions, a Turning Point for Obama

The president changes his line definitively on a crucial issue.

The Obama White House has announced that it will try to repeal the anti-gay marriage law of 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act. The day of Tuesday, Jul. 19, 2011 thus becomes an important day for those waiting for Barack Obama’s next step in defending the rights of homosexuals in the U.S.

Even in last February, the Obama administration announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend the 1996 law in the face of complaints. At that time, Obama instigated the decision based on the belief that the act was unconstitutional because it discriminates against different sexual orientations.

Last Tuesday’s decision to back the Respect for Marriage Act drafted by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California could give gay couples access to federal benefits that, until now, were accessible only to married heterosexual couples.

This move by the White House addresses two distinct yet related questions at the same time. On one hand, it is clear that the positions taken by Obama regarding homosexual rights form a precise trajectory throughout his political career.

During the 2008 campaign, he claimed to be opposed to federal legalization of same-sex marriage and that it should have been left to individual states. After his election, Obama soon announced that his views on the issue were “evolving,” but he was not able to avoid the attacks of gay activists, who were expecting more aggressive action by the successor of George W. Bush, a president completely in defense of “traditional marriage.”

Nevertheless, as president, Obama has bet part of his political capital in favor of gay rights with a new law concerning hate crimes (particularly important for gay people of school age) and a repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law of the Clinton era, which prevented homosexuals in uniform from disclosing their sexual orientation unless they were willing to risk immediate dismissal from the armed forces.

On the other hand, there is an obvious political reasoning: the 2012 election. Despite the substantial split between the two souls of the Republican Party — the “mainstream,” pragmatic and secular one represented by Romney and the “social conservative” one represented by Bachmann — in the scenery, Republican candidates support (with different tones, more or less like a crusade) the traditional view of marriage between a man and a woman. Obama’s reasoning is based not only on the evolution of his personal view of marriage, but also on research and surveys that confirm, from a cultural point of view, Americans (especially young people) are becoming less and less divided on the gay issue and increasingly supportive of same-sex marriage.

If the future stands with supporters of homosexual rights from the point of view of the social reality, then the fight has not yet finished from a political and cultural standpoint. The Catholic and most famous gay journalist in America, Andrew Sullivan, wrote in Newsweek that gay marriage is good for America and for the “pursuit of happiness.”

The only conservative Catholic who regularly writes in The New York Times, Ross Douthat, has not dared so much. Nevertheless he pointed out that the actions of a liberal culture in favor of gay marriage shows a rebirth of the marriage institution and a substantial defeat of the “liberationist” anti-marriage views of the 1960’s sexual revolution.

Whatever these Catholic intellectuals think, the Church and the Catholic swing vote will be the main electoral obstacle for this issue in 2012, especially in the Midwest and in states like Pennsylvania, always on the verge between Democrats and Republicans. A new bishop, a champion of traditional marriage, has just arrived in Pennsylvania. In the first interview granted after his appointment as archbishop of Philadelphia (announced on that same Tuesday, Jul. 19th), the current bishop of Denver, combative conservative Charles Chaput (personally chosen by Benedict XVI as bishop of one of the seven American cardinals’ seats) affirmed that the issue of the homosexual marriage “is the issue of our time” and that Catholics have a duty to “speak clearly about God’s plan for human happiness.”

Same-sex marriage is already legal in six U.S. states. The recent vote in the state of New York represented a fundamental moment of this all-American story, which is not only about the legalization of gay marriage, but also the “marriagation” of the gay movement. It would be a surprise if this wave will not involve — in the coming years — all the states of the northeast and western coasts of the U.S.