Obama and Marriage Equality

The President is reportedly going to address his marriage equality "evolution" today during an interview with ABC (1:30pm). Will he come out in favor of marriage equality at long last...? WHO KNOWS! What a fun game this is. Grumble.

Pam, whose state dishearteningly voted against marriage equality last night, sums it up:

Honestly, at this moment, I don't give a crap. Being jerked around, constantly seen as an ATM, and the man can't even state the obvious, and his surrogates continue this tap dance of stupidity over what is or isn't an affirmation that the President believes in full equality for gay and lesbian couples. His own campaign couldn't even lift a digital finger to tell people to vote against discrimination here in NC. The President can't even sign an executive order barring employment discrimination against LGBTs in federal contracts.

If this is some sort of debutante debut on the marriage equality scene for dramatic effect, it's kind of pathetic. If it's another Lucy and the football moment, it's time to stop the too-cute-by-half routine. Our lives have been treated like a political football by purported allies as well as professional anti-gays.

It's sickening to see our humanity diminished over and over for shiz and political giggles by people untouched by the discrimination.

That, right there, is the real cost of this "game." The personal is political, and politics is personal. People who admonish us silly idealists who "don't understand how politics works" to stop complaining about the President's 12-dimensional chess need to take a goddamn breath and remember this is about people's lives and communicating to US citizens their value to their government.

It's really easy for privileged people to forget that there is a psychological and emotional toll to being told, again and again and again, that you are less than by the nation that is your home.

And knowing that it's just political gamespersonship—ha ha nothing personal!—does not meaningfully alleviate that burden.

The President either supports people marginalized by marriage inequality or he doesn't. It's way past time that he does.

It's time to put on the Fierce Advocate pants!