"I don't think the argument for gay rights should hinge on whether you're gay or you know someone who is gay."

"If something is actually bad or morally wrong, you don't try to promote it by talking about the person in your family who does it. You may notice that I've been writing in support of same-sex marriage on this blog for more than 7 years, and I don't think I've ever bolstered the argument with anecdotes of personal experience. In fact, I think it cheapens the argument to blend that in."

That's what I wrote in September 2011, back when Dick Cheney clearly stated his support for same-sex marriage. A reader emailed me that in connection with Obama's statement about same-sex marriage, which was thoroughly bolstered with references to the real people he knows:

I've thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, I've gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction....

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn't dawn on them that their friends' parents should be treated differently.

Do our moral values take shape around the activities of the people we happen to know?

"Ann -- Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer: I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry."

Obama emails:

I hope you'll take a moment to watch the conversation, consider it, and weigh in yourself on behalf of marriage equality:

http://my.barackobama.com/Marriage

I watched. What struck me was how much he struggles to drag the statement out of himself and, specifically, how intently he stared down and to the left. There's some evidence that a person's eye direction indicates whether a person is accessing their memory or making something up. For a left-hander like Obama, looking down and to the left happens when the person is experiencing an internal dialogue — talking to himself.

Back to the email:

I've always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution.

But over the course of several years I've talked to friends and family about this. I've thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, I've gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

What I've come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens.

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn't dawn on them that their friends' parents should be treated differently.

So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

"Affirm" is such a studied word choice. I think he's pretty directly saying I decided to stop lying.

I respect the beliefs of others, and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines. But I believe that in the eyes of the law, all Americans should be treated equally. And where states enact same-sex marriage, no federal act should invalidate them.

In the end, he's going to leave it to the states. Would he support a federal law to require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states?
If you agree, you can stand up with me here.

Thank you,

Barack

Wait. The Secret Service Scandal has to do with homosexuality?

Oh... I see what you're saying.

Man, that's stupid.

I have listened to the video several times, and I stand by my perception that only one person audibly yells "boo."

I hear a loud "boo," then a difficult to decipher noise — which could be an ugh response to the booer — and then a little more of a boo, which sounds like the original guy.

ADDED: From Jim Geraghty (who faults Rick Santorum for failing to thank the soldier for his service):

Sarah Rumpf, who was in attendance, writes:

... There was audible booing after his question . . . however, please note that it was not the crowd booing. It was only one or two people.

I was at the debate, in the audience on the right hand side about halfway back...  The person who booed was just a few rows in front of us. The booing got an immediate and angry reaction from nearly everyone sitting around him, who hissed and shushed at him. Lots of loud gasps, “Shhhh!” “No!” “Shut up, you idiot!” etc.

See, that's my point. The sound after the loud boo was not more booing or any negativity directed at the soldier. It was hostility to the booer.

Also, Santorum says:  "I did not hear those boos . . . If I had, I would have said, 'Don’t do that, that man is serving his country and we ought to thank him for his service.'" As I said in my original post on the subject, these inferences about how the candidates responded to the audience "assumes they hear the sounds and can immediately correctly interpret whether it's an approval or disapproval sound and what it refers to."

In fact, if Rumpf is correct, most of the people watching at home were failing to correctly interpret the sounds they heard. If only one guy booed, and all the other voices were people trying to shush him, and the candidate had launched into some righteous chastising of the the audience, it would have opened that candidate to criticism about how he assumed the people were intolerant and ungrateful.

Live-blogging the GOP debate.

Hang out here!

8:02 — Watch it live here. Questions from around the world. This is the Google/YouTube aspect of the debate. The questions were voted on.

8:03 — The small businessman seeks the confidence to hire new employees. Perry has a message for lawyers: "Don't come to Texas."

8:05 — You want a more specific jobs plan? Look at Texas. That's my plan, Perry says. So far... it's all about Perry. "Governor Romney, you have a specific plan..." I'm sensing Fox leaning toward Romney.

8:07 — Romney won't define who's rich. He wants everybody to be rich!

8:08 — Out of every dollar you earn, you deserve to keep one dollar, says Michele Bachmann... but then she says we have to pay some taxes... so... I guess it's some ideological thing.

8:13 — "What? You don't call your wife a 'human being'! That's disgusting!" says Meade when Huntsman calls his wife the greatest "human being" he's ever known (which, by the way, was completely nonresponsive to the question asked).

8:15 — Herman Cain, is it just a coincidence that all those 9s just matched up in your 999 plan? Also, if we turn that upside down...

8:16 — Yesterday, Meade and I saw a guy wearing a yellow tie, and we were all: Yellow tie? Who wears a yellow tie? If you wore a yellow tie to a presidential debate, people would not take you seriously. Wearing a yellow tie tonight: Huntsman and Cain. [ADDED: And Ron Paul.]

8:17 — The question that got the most votes on YouTube: The 10th Amendment! How would you restrict the federal government to its original enumerated powers? Ron Paul answers and then — finally! — Gary Johnson. He does a prepared speech. My first impression of his looks: He's kind of like Harrison Ford. Meade says: "Look at his left thumb... It's like he's constantly pushing a 'Jeopardy' button."

8:22 — Commercial break. I'll go see what my son John is live-blogging.

8:29 — You old people, don't worry about Social Security. The rest of you people... worry! (Paraphrasing Rick Perry.)

8:30 — "You'd better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that," says Mitt Romney, doing some sort of "humor" thing. Then Rick Perry gets to respond to Romney's charge that he's deviating from his book, and he points to some discrepancy between Mitt's book in the hard cover and the paperback edition. When Mitt gets a chance to respond to that, Perry calls the back and forth "badminton," which sounds like "Bad Mitt(on)." Mitt responds, but we're distracted by Perry, who looks super-happy. We laugh, and agree Perry looks like Reagan.

8:34 — Romney makes a joke I think we'll be hearing more than once: "I only spent 4 years as a governor. I didn't inhale." That's done with a glance at Perry, who, presumably, is a habitual governor, toking on power like a maniac.

8:36 — Eliminate one department of the federal government, one questioner demands. Cain says: EPA. (But then he's going to "rebuild" it, so... not really responsive.

8:47 — Lots of talk about education, and just about everyone seems to think the federal government ought to get the hell out of it.

8:52 — Romney slams Perry on in-state tuition for Texas students in the country illegally. Why should they get what is a  $100,000 discount compared to what non-Texan American citizens pay? Romney just doesn't understand what Perry is arguing.

8:54 — Yeah, well, try being a governor of a state with a 1200-mile border with Mexico, Perry says. "I don't think you have a heart."

8:56 — Perry: "Have you ever even been to the border of Mexico?" You can't build a wall, he says, in a head-to-head battle with Santorum, who asserted that Perry doesn't understand "sovereignty."

8:59 — The answer on illegal immigration, Ron Paul says, is to take away all the benefits.

9:05 — Romney hits Obama for going around the world apologizing for the U.S. and for failing to "stand shoulder to shoulder" with our ally Israel.

9:16 — Doesn't Michele Bachmann believe in a "wall" between church and state? She praises free expression of beliefs in "the public square" — which doesn't say anything about what the government should or shouldn't be doing.

9:18 — Santorum thinks it's "tragic" "social experimentation" to allow gay people to serve openly in the military. He argues that sex just shouldn't be an issue in the military. "Just keep it to yourself." So, he'd bring back Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

9:23 — Cain is revealed as a survivor of liver and colon cancer, and he speaks passionately against Obamacare, which would, he believes, have killed him, with the delays of bureaucracy.

9:28 — Michele Bachmann gets an opportunity to deal with her statement about the HPV virus and mental retardation. She says she was just relaying a comment someone made to her, but the real issue is Rick Perry's signing an executive order forcing "little girls" to get a shot to protect them from a sexually transmitted disease. She also accuses him of acting in response to lobbying from the drug company. Perry says he was lobbied, lobbied by a young woman with cervical cancer. (I wrote about that here, and Perry didn't meet that woman until after he'd signed the executive order.)

9:36 — Perry has a long "he was for it before he was against it" routine to recite about Romney, but his delivery is slow and halting, like he's getting tired.

9:37 — Romney is not tired, and he gets out the quote of the night: "I'm going to stand by my positions. I'm proud of them. There are a lot of reasons not to elect me. There are a lot of reasons not to elect other people on this stage. But one reason to elect me is that I know what I stand for, I've written it down, words have meaning, and I have the experience to get this country going again."

9:48 — Closing statements, apparently. I'm drifting off. Santorum, waving his finger in the air, says "Reagan," which makes me realize they haven't been saying "Reagan" over and over too much tonight. And then Gary Johnson says something about his neighbor's dogs' poop and "shovel-ready jobs" and cracks up at his own prepackaged humor. The audience loves it. Mitt Romney loves it. Santorum loves it. Hear that? Dog poop! Ha ha ha.

9:52 — They're asked to pick one of the other candidates for VP. Johnson picks Paul, because the country is "about freedom." Santorum picks Gingrich, and Gingrich has no idea who he'd pick. Paul won't pick. Perry wants to take Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich and "mate them up." And Mitt says, "There are a couple of images I'm going to have trouble getting out of my mind" — Cain and Gingrich mating and Johnson's neighbor's dogs pooping. And he's not picking his VP on stage right now. But any one of these people would be better than what we've got in Obama. Bachmann wants a "constitutional conservative." Herman Cain says this is a game, and he'll play the game, and he says he'll pick Romney, if he adopts 999, and otherwise Gingrich. Huntsman says Romney and Perry may not be around because they're going to "bludgeon themselves to death." So he picks Herman Cain because of the yellow tie. So... color.

"Marines Hit the Ground Running in Seeking Recruits at Gay Center."

The NYT reports:

The Marines were the service most opposed to ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but they were the only one of five invited branches of the military to turn up with their recruiting table and chin-up bar at the center Tuesday morning. Although Marines pride themselves on being the most testosterone-fueled of the services, they also ferociously promote their view of themselves as the best. With the law now changed, the Marines appear determined to prove that they will be better than the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard in recruiting gay, lesbian and bisexual service members.

"Gay men and lesbians in the military no longer have to hide who they are, and the servicemembers who were discharged under this policy can re-enlist."

Says email titled "It's officially over" from BarackObama.com. "It" is, of course, Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The email includes this video:



ADDED: Is the right to re-enlist really enough for the individuals who were discharged?

"The Pentagon is set to certify that the U.S. military is prepared to accept openly gay and lesbian service members..."

"... and doing so will not harm military readiness, a U.S. official told CNN on Thursday."

The 9th Circuit gives the Obama administration 10 days to say whether it will appeal the injunction against enforcing Don't Ask Don't Tell.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

[T]he court said it did not believe the Obama administration is prepared to defend the constitutionality of Don’[t] Ask, Don’t Tell....

But the court wrangling appears to be much ado about nothing.

Although the injunction will bar the military from discharging any gay or lesbian service members, as a practical matter the injunction will have little effect on a military that is gearing up for repeal. Pentagon officials have said that they will be ready to certify that the military is ready for repeal within weeks.

Requiring same-sex couples to marry if they want to keep health insurance benefits they've previously enjoyed with domestic partnerships.

This issue arises in the 6 states (plus D.C.) that allow same-sex marriage.

On the surface, this appears to put the couples on an even footing with heterosexual married couples. After all, this is precisely what they have been fighting for: being treated as a spouse. But some gay and lesbian advocates are arguing that the change may have come too soon: some couples may face complications, since their unions are not recognized by the federal government.

So, when opposite-sex couples decide whether to marry, to the extent that it's an economic calculation, they are weighing a much different set of pros and cons. For example, joint federal income tax returns can save a huge (or cost) amount of money. And under federal tax law, the spouse/"spouse" who receives his/her partner's health benefits has treat the benefit as income and pay tax on it.

If one of the spouses is not a U.S. citizen and is in the country on a temporary visa, the state-level-only marriage "could flag your renewal application and reflect your more permanent decision to stay." Marriage, instead of helping you get to citizenship, would send you in the direction of losing your visa.

What if one spouse is in the military? Getting married violates Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which isn't completely gone yet.

In addition, a state-level-only marriage causes problems if the couple moves to a state that doesn't recognize that marriage (and is entitled, under the Defense of Marriage Act, to decline to recognize the marriage):

Getting a divorce can be complicated, since one member of a couple may have to return to the gay marriage state and live there before their split can be completed.

The employers making the changes [to require marriage to retain benefits] said they spoke regularly with their gay and lesbian employee groups and planned to phase in the requirement. Corning, based in Corning, N.Y., said it would offer a reasonable grace period, though it had not completed the details.

“After waiting so much time for that right, we want them to have the opportunity to enjoy that,” said Christy Pambianchi, a senior vice president for human resources at Corning, which put the policy into effect in New Hampshire and Massachusetts when gay marriage became legal there. She said employees did not raise concerns about the requirement. “They are delighted,” she said.

So the New Hampshire and Massachusetts same-sex couples didn't notice the problem? It took New York. Why was that? Are New Yorkers more legalistic and inclined toward economic analysis? Are they more likely to speak up in their own self-interest even when they are getting something they'd been asking for that's supposed to be good?

Obviously, some same-sex couples are happy to be allowed to get married, but under the law, marriage is a complicated matter. It's not just about pledging your love and devotion. In fact, you can do that without a legal marriage. As Joni Mitchell sang a long time ago: "We don't need no piece of paper. From the city hall. Keeping us tied and true."

Legal marriage is about a whole lot of other things, and the set of things is not the same for opposite sex and same-sex marriage. The decision to get married is a different decision for same-sex couples, and it's not real equality to have to decide between losing your health insurance benefits and entering into the kind of marriage that is works only in at the state level and only in some of the states.

"Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly told Marines... that they won't be able to opt out of their enlistment..."

"... just because they disagree with a government decision to end a ban on gays serving openly in the military."

Wasn't it bizarre even to ask? I mean... as they say... don't ask.

"The excuse that you're not breaking new gossip you're just helping to spread gossip seems like a pretty lame excuse."

Jack Craver — the Isthmus writer who did that hit piece on me — takes some heat for writing "Oh, and Herb Kohl is long-rumored to be gay." That came in the context of talking about whether Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin — who is openly gay — could run successfully for Herb Kohl's Senate seat.

If the question is what counts as outing? then it's not outing to report the existence of well-known rumors. How well-known are the rumors about Herb Kohl?

But the question isn't really how to define the term "outing." It's whether it's whether a journalist should bring up the subject of rumors in a particular context. Here, the context is whether an openly gay candidate will be successful running for an political position now held by a rumored-to-be-gay person. Another context where it might seem justified is reporting the rumored-to-be-gay person's vote on the repeal of Defense of Marriage Act or Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

I think the mainstream norm is to avoid mentioning the rumor and to wait until the person identifies himself as gay — even in those special contexts. Perhaps it depends on how obvious the rumors have been balanced against how gay-related the context is. And the thumb on the scales is: How edgy/mainstream do you want to be?

Isthmus is our "alternative newspaper." We could talk about what that term means. And Craver's on-line writing self-identifies as a "blog," whatever the hell that is.

Everyone's all atwitter at the Sarah Palin re-tweet of a pro-gay tweet.

"I think @SarahPalinUSA RT my tweet is her first comment on DADT, treatment of gays & attempts to marginalize us–thank you Governor."

The original tweet, from Tammy Bruce, was:

But this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already--the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed

"DADT dead-enders latch onto 'shower issue.'"

"Gay troops have been showering alongside straight troops for quite a while. The same is true of professional athletes, students at dorms with communal showers, and gyms across the country."

Yes, this is obvious.

Those who are harping on the shower issue have lost track of the pervasive reality that we can't know and can't police what is in another person's mind — and that people frequently think sexual thoughts. It's utterly routine to encounter people who are thinking about having sex with you. Sometimes these are people you would regard as acceptable sexual partners and sometimes they're not. So what? It's insane to let that bother you. If they don't say anything or do anything or act out in any way, it's nothing to us. If your ability to go about doing what you need to do is undermined by worrying about other people's sexual thoughts, then you are abnormal. It's ironic for the people who think homosexuals are abnormal to believe that heterosexuals are abnormal.

"No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie..."

"... or look over their shoulder in order to serve the country that they love."

Says Barack Obama, signing the repeal of the odious Clinton-era legislation known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

It's shameful that it's taken so long, and I have previously commented on Obama's lackluster efforts in this area. It remains to be seen how well he will do truly implementing the end to discrimination against gay people in the military, but today's signing is a step along the way, and it deserves acknowledgment.

The law will not actually change until the Pentagon certifies to Congress that the military has met several conditions, including education and training programs for the troops.

"In the coming days, we will begin the process laid out by this law" to implement the repeal, Obama said. Meanwhile, he cautioned, "the old policy remains in effect." But he pledged that all the service chiefs are "committed to implementing this change swiftly and efficiently," and he vowed, "We are not going to be dragging our feet to get this done."

I'll be watching those feet.

With the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," where will the gay rights movement go?

The New York Times reports on a Media Matters project called Equality Matters.

It will be run by Richard Socarides, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who has been deeply critical of President Obama’s record on gay rights. A well-known gay journalist, Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for The Advocate, will leave that magazine in January to edit the new group’s Web site, equalitymatters.org, which is to go online Monday morning.

“Yesterday was a very important breakthrough,” Mr. Socarides said... “But we will celebrate this important victory for five minutes, and then we have to move on, because we are the last group of Americans who are discriminated against in federal law and there is a lot of work to do.”

Yes, there's the obvious issue of marriage, and one might want a federal statute forbidding employment discrimination.  All right. Fine. But let's look a little farther into the future and think about the political repercussions. What would happen to the gay rights movement if the specific discrimination ended and ordinary legal equality were achieved?

Right now, gay people look to the Democratic Party (and to judges appointed by Democratic Presidents) to get these basic rights. The Democratic Party gets a political advantage by looking like a repository of hope. But would gay people continue to favor Democrats if the Democrats actually followed through and satisfied those hopes? There'd be some gratefulness, but — unless Republicans succumb to the temptation to say mean things — wouldn't gay people melt into the general population and, from that point on, vote based on what they thought about economic policies, national defense, environmental issues and so forth? Achieving equality would liberate gay people in may ways, but one of those ways would be that they could vote for Republicans if they agreed with them about issues other than gay rights issues.

Ironic, no?

Congress repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," but — look! — ooh! — It's a baby!

Here's the CNN home page a 11:46 p.m. EST, on the day that Congress repealed the odious old Clinton-era legislation:



So, a woman has a baby. That's the main thing. Secondarily, there's North Korea. And "Dont miss" the fact that C.S. Lewis is still popular, there's a lot of Christmas trash, and geeks are "cooler than nerds." In the fine print, the DADT repeal is listed under "Latest news," after a "moderate" earthquake in Indonesia and before the fact that it's been cold in Europe.

Screen shot by Chris Althouse Cohen, who asks "How can some woman giving birth vaginally two weeks ago be a bigger story than Don't Ask Don't Tell being repealed?"

Well, I think you nailed it. Key word: vaginally. Don't worry, America. Vaginas!

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" clears the filibuster!

63-33.

UPDATE: The Senate votes to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," 65-31.

“We righted a wrong,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut and a leader of the effort to end the ban. “Today we’ve done justice.”

4 Senators did not vote. 3 Republicans — Bunning, Gregg, and Hatch. 1 Democrat: Joe Manchin. All of the no votes were Republican. Republicans voting yes were: Scott Brown, Burr (of NC), Susan Collins, John Ensign, Mark Steven Kirk (in Barack Obama's old seat), Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snow, George Voinovich.

I don't like all this lame duck action, but I'm greatly pleased to see the awful old law repealed at last.

AND: John McCain raged, as Dana Milbank describes it:

McCain famously said in 2006 that he would support repeal once military leaders recommended it. Instead, he led the opposition to repeal. McCainologists in the Capitol speculate that on this and other issues he's driven less by policy consideration than by personal animosity....

On Saturday, McCain's rage was all the more striking because the general tone of the debate was tame. Republicans were mostly defensive, objecting not to the service of homosexuals in the military but to procedures and other technical matters. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said of the repeal: "Should it be done at some point in time? Maybe so, but in the middle of a military conflict is not the time to do it."...

When it came time for his closing argument before the day's key vote, McCain spoke for only a few seconds: "Today's a very sad day. The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don't want anything distracting. . . . I don't want to permit that opportunity to happen and I'll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You've got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs."

McCain turned and, without another word, walked into the cloakroom.

"In the end, Marines in combat will treat sexual orientation the same way they treat race, religion and..."

"... one's stance on the likelihood of the Patriots winning another Super Bowl. I do not believe the intense desire we all feel as Marines to accomplish the mission and protect each other will be affected in the slightest by knowing the sexual orientation of the man or woman next to us.... I believe the reluctance many Marines feel about repeal is based on the false stereotype, borne out of ignorance, that homosexuals don't do things like pull other Marines from burning vehicles. The truth is, they do it all the time. We simply don't know it because they can't tell us."

Nathan Cox, an infantry captain in the Marine Corps.

"Obama Closes In on Big Wins in Lame-Duck Congress" — says the New York Times.

The home page looks like this:




At the link, the headline tones down the pro-Obama spin:

Could Lame Duck Be a Big Win for Obama Agenda?

Is President Obama on the verge of one of his most productive months in office?...

In the early hours of Friday morning, the president won passage of the $858 billion tax deal he reached with Republicans and he appears close to achieving approval of the landmark nuclear treaty he negotiated with the Russians. Both political parties have grudgingly agreed to do whatever is necessary to keep the federal government operating by approving an extension of the current budget authority into early next year.

And in something of a surprise, it appears there may be enough Republican support to provide Mr. Obama with a victory on a key promise: to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars gay people from serving opening in the armed forces.

AND: By contrast, Politico:

Democrats concede budget fight to Republicans.

Senate Democrats abruptly abandoned an omnibus budget bill for the coming year, pushing major spending decisions into the next Congress and giving Republicans immense new leverage to confront President Barack Obama priorities.

But see Krauthammer:

Remember the question after Election Day: Can Obama move to the center to win back the independents who had abandoned the party in November? And if so, how long would it take? Answer: Five weeks. An indoor record, although an asterisk should denote that he had help - Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals.

The conservative gloaters were simply fooled again by the flapping and squawking that liberals ritually engage in before folding at Obama's feet....

And Obama pulled this off at his lowest political ebb...