In the past year and a half, President Obama has quietly used his powers to expand federal rights and benefits for gays and lesbians, targeting one government restriction after another in an attempt to change public policy while avoiding a confrontation with Republicans and opponents of gay rights.

The result is that scores of federal rules blocking gay rights have been swept aside or reinterpreted by Obama officials eager to advance the agenda of a constituency that strongly backed the president’s 2008 campaign.

Among the changes: Gay partners of federal workers will now receive long-term health insurance, access to day care and other benefits. Federal Housing Authority loans can no longer consider the sexual orientation of applicants. The Census Bureau plans to report the number of people who report being in a same-sex relationship. Hospitals must allow gays to visit their ill partners. And federal child-care subsidies can be used by the children of same-sex domestic partners.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department is expected to announce that federal officials have rethought the Family and Medical Leave Act, concluding that under the law, a gay federal employee may take leave to care for a child with a gay partner.

Individually, none of the changes is especially dramatic. But taken together, they significantly alter the way gays and lesbians are viewed under federal law.

The administration’s effort, made largely under the radar — and outside the reach of Congress — has alarmed opponents of gay rights, who accuse the president of undermining traditional marriage even as he speaks about respecting it.

“He’s been a supporter of married mothers and fathers in name only,” said Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for CitizenLink, an affiliate of Focus on the Family. “He speaks very passionately and touchingly about how he grew up without a father. And yet there is this huge disconnect in how he’s undermining that same opportunity for other children.”

In a Father’s Day statement Sunday, Obama called fathers “our first teachers and coaches, mentors and role models” and said that “nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a stepfather, a grandfather, or caring guardian.”

Tyree called the inclusion of “two fathers” in the proclamation a “very troubling” decision to promote a “motherless family.”

But gay rights advocates have greeted the changes as evidence that Obama has not abandoned them — even as he has frustrated some by failing to act quickly on campaign promises to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act and bring an end to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“The administration is moving the executive branch to really provide interpretations that will change the lives of millions of [lesbian and gay] people for the better,” said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign.

Winnie Stachelberg, a senior vice president at the Center for American Progress, praised Obama for finding creative ways to unravel policies that she said have long been unfair to gays.

“This administration has really opened up the toolbox that it alone has access to, to address the problems faced by gays and lesbians,” she said.

Obama remains under pressure from some members of the gay community to move more quickly and forcefully on the major battles with Congress. A group of activists interrupted his speech at a Democratic fundraiser in California last month, yelling that he should do more to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

He will probably hear similar complaints Tuesday night, when he hosts a Gay and Lesbian Pride Month event at the White House for the second year in a row.

Administration officials are quick to note their legislative successes. The president signed a federal hate crimes bill into law that for the first time provides protections against crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation. And the Senate is one vote away from ending the military’s controversial policy on service by gays and lesbians.

But aides said the administration has purposely sought to take other actions to circumvent those battles.

“While many of the items of concern to the [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community require Congress to act, the president has also taken many steps that don’t require a change in the law,” said Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman. “The president and his administration remain committed to achieving equality for all, and it’s clear that we’re moving forward.”

Obama’s orders have relied largely on authority the president has to reshape the federal government, much in the way that George W. Bush used the levers of the federal bureaucracy to relax government restrictions on oil and gas exploration on federally protected land. In April, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reinterpreted the Violence Against Women act to cover partners in a same-sex relationship. In remarks Monday to gay employees at the Justice Department, Holder promised more of the same.

“Too many of the challenges that confronted the LGBT community 16 years ago . . . confront us still today,” he said at the department’s celebration of gay pride month. “Too many of the same obstacles that existed then remain for us to overcome. Too many talented men and women cannot, in the words of this year’s motto, “serve openly, with pride.”

Staff writer Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.

Original posting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104709.html?hpid=topnews

From NPR:

While on the campaign trail, Barack Obama made hundreds of promises. And throughout the president’s first year in office, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Web site PolitiFact has tracked each one of those commitments.

Just before Obama took office, PolitiFact combed through campaign documents, speeches and debate transcripts to see what promises he had made. They found more than 500 individual promises and put each of them into a database to be monitored closely.

They found 91 promises have been fulfilled, 33 compromised on, 87 stalled and 14 broken. The remaining promises are designated as being “in the works.”

Source Text:

www.gaygenda.com

Obama Nominates Openly Gay Ambassador

An official from President Obama’s administration has announced the President plans to nominate David Huebner, an openly gay lawyer as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and American Samoa.

If confirmed by the Senate, Huebner will become the administration’s first openly gay ambassador. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both had openly gay ambassadors during their terms as well.

Source of Information: http://www.gayagenda.com/2009/10/obama-nominates-openly-gay-ambassador/

Speaking last night at the annual HRC dinner, President Obama told attendees that he remains committed to ending the military policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ending discrimination in the workplace and pushing for acceptance and inclusion of loving couples and their families.

This came the night before the National March for Equality happening in the nation’s capital today.

The president also made a point to let those in attendance know he is a strong ally in the fight for LGBT equality, and that he understands and encourages activism by the LGBT community, and that he understands the sense of urgency by many who have grown impatient with the rate of change stating he’s interested in building a nation where “no one is denied their basic rights, in which all of us are free to live and love as we see fit.”

The president added:

“You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”

When it comes to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the president stated:

“I am working with the Pentagon, its leadership and members of the House and Senate to end this policy. I will end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That is my commitment to you.”

One point I would like to highlight, which is in my opinion the most important point, is the president’s voice urging activism.

One of the best know speeches of all time came from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and included the statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

This IS the point.  With the harsh opposition President Obama has and continues to face from the large and loud vast right wing of this nation, our voice is probably the most important element in this struggle.  We can not and should not expect the president to dictate (which would be considered forcing an agenda) equality.

We need our struggle to be seen and our voices to be heard.  This is our struggle, our fight and it’s not fair or just for the LGBT community to place our needs and wants directly on the shoulders of any one person, group or organization.

The LGBT community needs to drop our apathy and work.  We want, want, want, but we are not willing to work, work, work!

When you look at other struggles throughout history you find a great deal of work behind the successes.  Nothing in this life is free and nothing change does NOT happen overnight.

So as pleased as I am to hear the president reaffirm his commitment to equality for LGBT citizens, as pleased as I am that we finally have a president that supports the LGBT community, I am also disappointed.  Disappointed not because of the slow pace of change, not because the president hasn’t forced the repeal of laws that need to be changed by a democratic legislative process, but disappointed because of the apathy within the LGBT community.

Many of our strongest voices have come from our straight allies.  People don’t see our struggle, they see gay men who would rather dance in the streets during gay pride events in Speedos, having a ‘gay’ ole time.

The time is now, the call is here.  If we want to be taken serious, we need to act serious.  Cut the B.S., put down the boa’s, pink shoes, silliness and put on some clothes, and demonstrate.  Demonstrated everyday that you are not only a second class citizen, but a citizen who is deserving and of rights, equality and inclusion.

The fact is, much of the world views the LGBT community as we’ve been portrayed by the media…as weak, flamboyant, silly and yes…gay.  Equality is a serious issue, it’s time we, the LGBT community got off of our lazy butts and took it seriously.

Source of information: http://www.gayagenda.com/2009/10/president-obamas-promise-to-lgbt-people/