Today, the President made remarks as part of a White House Pride celebration. Given the number of accomplishments Obama has achieved since being elected that impact the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans communities, one would expect that the press coverage of the event would be glowingly positive- at least in the Queer Press. But that isn’t the case. What the President hasn’t done, or more correctly, said is garnering all the attention. Everyone seems to be up in arms because Obama hasn’t evolved enough in terms of Marriage Equality, to say he supports it.

I really don’t understand this focus on the negative! Doesn’t anyone remember what happened in the 2010 elections?  All these gays were uppity and pissed off that Obama hadn’t done more for us, and they voted Republican, and we now have a chaos government from the State to the Federal level. It wasn’t just the queers: it wear many democrats, but you know what I mean. What will all this focus on the negative produce?

For me, the real disappointment of today’s remarks have nothing to do with Marriage Equality. I wanted to hear him say  that the next item on the agenda is an inclusive ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act). While Marriage impacts a significant part of the LGBTQ community, non-discrimination protections impact every single person within the LGBTQ rainbow. My concern is that if everyone is hung up on Obama’s evolving ideas on marriage, who is busy pushing for the rest of a full equality agenda?

I like to think strategically, and from that perspective, I have to ask what is the strategic value of focusing on Obama’s view of marriage? If he had come out today and said he was for marriage, what would that have accomplished? Would anyone actually benefit from it today or tomorrow? Not really. The bottom line is that Obama’s view of marriage won’t change the trajectory towards Marriage Equality.

Because states issue marriage licenses, and each state has its own requirements and rules, the battle for Marriage Equality must be fought at the states. From the Federal perspective, the important piece is the elimination of DOMA. DOMA is currently in the process of dying in the courts are higher and higher courts label DOMA as unconstitutional. Very little else to do but allow the court process to complete. Even if we were to look to Congress to repeal DOMA, Obama’s views on Marriage Equality really wouldn’t affect Congress.

If activists truly care about full equality, then we must take responsibility for keeping the focus on full equality. Consider Canada, which has had Marriage Equality for 10 years, but a Trans person can still be fired or refused housing. We, as activists, especially highly vocal ones, do the whole of our community a disservice by being too overly focused on only one aspect of full equality. I think of it like a war. In this case it is a war against progressively moving  forward towards full equality versus our opposition who wish to urn the clock back a few hundred years. In  this war, we are fighting many battles- all at the same time. We can’t put too much effort towards any one battle if it means losing ground on another battle. We need to make sure we continue to make progress on all the battle fronts.

There is a time and a place to hold Obama accountable, and there is a time and a place to make sure we are offering him enough support for progress to continue. During his presidency, more has been accomplished to help the LGBT community than under any other president ever. We could lose sight of that, if we get too over-focused on why his views of marriage aren’t evolving quicker.

M y view is on;y one perspective. Please feel free to leave a comment and offer your own.