Snowball Effect

I'm rushing this morning, but check out AmericaBlog, Pam's House Blend, and The Slog for more on the Obama/DOMA debacle. It seems that the White House is finally getting a clue -- at least, a clue that one of their customary teats is drying up. People are pulling out of next week's GLBT fundraiser, so the president is going to sign a memorandum -- not an executive order mind you, a "memorandum," which will expire when he leaves office -- granting gay and lesbian government employees "some" partner benefits. That doesn't include health insurance or retirement benefits. Can you think of any other employer-provided benefits off the top of your head?

I'm also going to spend some time today writing to my congressional delegation -- none of them has let out a peep about this, and I know they're sympathetic. They need to be prodded to open their mouths. So do yours -- write them. They need to condemn that DOMA filing in the strongest possible terms, and sign on to any legislation repealing DADT and DOMA -- if none exists, tell them to introduce it themselves.

Jim Burroway (who is also pissed off, you can tell), has a brief summary.

He also notes statements from Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis. Guess who's missing?

Update:

Here's a post from John Aravosis on the president's "employee benefits" dog and pony show, scheduled for this evening.

First off, Chuck Todd on MSNBC said that because this is only a "memorandum," as he called it, it will expire when Obama leaves office. Lovely. Second, health benefits for federal employees won't be covered. Why? Because of DOMA, so says the Advocate.

Just which benefits will gay federal employees be getting? The White House is refusing to say. But it's unlikely it's anything involving money, like Social Security, or, as we now know, health care. Which is ironic, since health care is Obama's number one issue (but not for us). Also ironic, which I wrote about earlier, is that health care reform likely won't cover us either, since they'd have to include us as "families" and "dependents" - and let's face it, they just compared us to incest and pedophilia, does anyone think this administration or this congress is going to define us as "family" in their health care package? (It's also not clear that DOMA would let health care reform provide us any benefits anyway.) In any case, Obama's inaction on DOMA, and outright defense of DOMA, is now undercutting his other efforts, meager that they are, to help us. It's all tied together.

Dan Savage, with his usual eloquence:

Could the Obama administration possibly be ANY MORE incompetent when it comes to gay issues? Let it leak that you're going "extend federal benefits" to the partners of gay federal employees, hope that this move mollifies furious gay rights organizations and activists still reeling from your DOMA betrayal, and THEN announce that—sorry!—the package of benefits doesn't include the single most important work-related benefit: health insurance.Could the Obama administration possibly be ANY MORE incompetent when it comes to gay issues? Let it leak that you're going "extend federal benefits" to the partners of gay federal employees, hope that this move mollifies furious gay rights organizations and activists still reeling from your DOMA betrayal, and THEN announce that—sorry!—the package of benefits doesn't include the single most important work-related benefit: health insurance.

And Pam Spaulding:

This administration, the Congress and the DNC need to see the LGBT ATM shut down. NOW. That June 26 LGBT DNC fundraiser is toast. No one is buying a partner benefit plan that doesn't include health insurance, for god's sake. Will he announce an effort to send Congress something to act on? Uh, keep dreaming - his DOJ just wrote up a brief that uses defenses against incest and underage marriage to claim our relationships are unworthy of equal treatment under the law.

Why do I detect the fine hand of Rahm Emanuel in this? I really can't shake the feeling that it's Emanuel who's decided to throw us to the wolves and Obama -- and remember, he's now proven himself to be just another Chicago pol -- is going along with it so that we don't interfere with his efforts to placate a bunch of losers in Congress who represent 20% of the country.

As of now, I will not support any Democrat running for anything. I'll just stay home, with the purse strings pulled tight.