Liberal? Get A Clue!

I have to laugh when I hear folks on the right calling President Barack Obama a flaming leftist, bleeding heart liberal. I have to laugh or I’ll cry. I supported then candidate Obama and happily voted for him in the election. Progressive/Liberal that I am, I knew he was a brilliant guy, but I also knew he was a pretty conservative-verging-on-middle-of-the-road politician. Don’t get me wrong, compared to the Bush-Cheney-Rove group who dragged our nation down in the mud for the last eight years, Obama and his administration are more than a breath of fresh air. They are returning us to our moral compass and our core Constitutional values. But President Obama is not the dream come true of progressives and liberals.

Case in point: for some unknown and frankly unfathomable reason, the Justice Department under the current Obama administration, has filed a brief in Federal Court defending the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA). In a nutshell, DOMA says that if a same sex couple is legally married in one state, no other state is obligated to recognize that marriage contract and bars the Federal government from treating any such marriage as a legal marriage. Both candidate and President Obama supported a full repeal of DOMA - that is until the Justice Department filed this inexplicable and deeply offensive brief last week.

President Obama and his administration have a full to overflowing plate of issues to be addressed. I get that the economy and wars and health care and a plethora of issues all need attention. But that’s no reason to do a 180 degree turn on a moral issue. This isn’t a gay rights issue. It’s an equal rights issue. To learn more you can watch the video clip from tonight’s Rachel Maddow Show, where she interviews Howard Dean. Maybe someone in the Obama administration could take a look at it as well and review some of the President’s earlier statements as a “fierce advocate for Gay Rights”...

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