Category Archives: John Aravosis

Critics assail Pentagon over blocked gay sites

Pentagon, military, gay news, Washington Blade

Activists are pressuring the Department of Defense to lift a block on the websites of LGBT blogs and organizations. (Public domain photo by Master Sgt. Ken Hammond)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has blocked access to several popular LGBT websites, angering activists, according to AmericaBlog.

The Internet filter, provided by software maker Blue Coat, blocks not just adult sites, but also blogs like Americablog and the sites of organizations like GLAAD and HRC.

“Blue Coat is banning any and all news related to gay and trans people, and even banning anti-bullying and suicide prevention information,” Americablog’s John Aravosis writes. “That’s an incredibly offensive category for any company to create, but adding in anti-bullying and suicide prevention as two specific things that need to be censored, is beyond offensive, especially when Blue Coat admits that sites are ‘generally suitable for viewing by all age groups.’”

HRC and GLAAD have both mobilized readers to reach out to Blue Shield and the Pentagon over the filter block, and a Change.org petition to lift the block had garnered 3,232 supporters as of Wednesday.

Activists criticize new AP policy on couples

AP, Associated Press, gay news, Washington Blade

The Associated Press Building in New York City (Photo by Alterego via wikimedia commons)

WASHINGTON – Advocates continue to criticize the Associated Press for a memo it released on Tuesday that said journalists should use the words “husband” and “wife” to describe same-sex couples only if they have used them or in quotes attributed to them.

The memo said the news agency “generally” uses “couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.”

The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia court decision in a blog post about the AP memo. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and gay blogger John Aravosis also criticized the news agency.

“It isn’t the Associated Press’ job to overrule the courts and legislatures in nine American states, and numerous foreign countries,” Aravosis wrote on his blog. “Last time I checked, it’s states that determine who is legally married in America, not the Associated Press.”

Obama cements legacy as ‘fierce advocate’

Citizens Metal, Barack Obama, gay news, Washington Blade

LGBT advocates applaud Obama’s Prop 8 brief, but still want more. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The relationship between the LGBT community and President Obama has arguably never been stronger in the wake of the administration’s decision to participate in the lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 8 — but advocates want him to continue that momentum on other LGBT issues.

On one hand, LGBT rights supporters are pleased with the Justice Department’s friend-of-the-court brief because it marked the first time the administration argued that a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. On the other hand, some advocates continue to clamor for advances in other areas — in particular by signing an executive order barring LGBT workplace discrimination for federal contractors.

Fred Sainz, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, was among those who said the brief signaled that Obama continues to lead on issues facing the LGBT community.

“In ways big and small, he continues to distinguish himself as a leader on issues important to our community.” Sainz said. “So, the truth is, I think the president has by filing this brief cemented his legacy as a ‘fierce advocate’ for LGBT people.”

Following calls from LGBT advocates, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed the Justice Department’s brief last week before the Supreme Court. It applies the administration’s reasoning for why the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional — namely that laws related to sexual orientation should be subject to heightened scrutiny – to California’s Prop 8.

While the brief focuses on the constitutionality of Prop 8, which is the question before the Supreme Court, the filing also has language suggesting that same-sex marriage bans in other states are unconstitutional. The brief observes that eight states including California have bans on same-sex marriage while offering domestic partnerships to same-sex couples with the same benefits of marriage.

During a news conference at the White House on Friday, Obama himself said the reasoning presented against Prop 8 in the brief may apply to other cases.

“Now, the court may decide that if it doesn’t apply in this case, it probably can’t apply in any case,” Obama said. “There’s no good reason for it. If I were on the court, that would probably be the view that I’d put forward. But I’m not a judge, I’m the president. So the basic principle, though, is let’s treat everybody fairly and let’s treat everybody equally.”

Richard Socarides, a gay New York advocate who was pushing for Obama to speak out against the constitutionality of Prop 8, said the brief reiterates Obama’s views that laws against gay people should be subject to heightened scrutiny, but extends the president’s views further.

“It’s having the president of the United States say for the first time in a legal brief to the Supreme Court that gays and lesbians have historically been discriminated against, and that they’re entitled to heightened constitutional scrutiny, and that in this particular case, they’ve been discriminated against,” Socarides said. “I do think it was a big victory for the community, so I think it was an important milestone and definitely a step forward.”

In addition to filing the brief, the Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to grant the solicitor general speaking time during the oral arguments in the Prop 8 case – a move that wasn’t publicly called for by LGBT advocates. The Supreme Court has yet to respond to the request.

And the moves in the Prop 8 case are coupled with the Obama administration’s active involvement in the litigation against the Defense of Marriage Act. In recent weeks, the administration has taken action elsewhere.

The Pentagon has started the process for implementing certain partner benefits for gay troops. That action comes in the wake of the inaugural address in which Obama issued a national call to advance the rights of “our gay brothers and sisters.”

John Aravosis, editor of AMERICAblog, said Obama deserves credit for filing the Prop 8 brief, but also criticized the White House for refusing to talk to about it before submitting it to the Supreme Court and filing it on the last possible day.

“Obviously, there was a hiccup in actually getting this brief,” Aravosis said. “It sort of appeared at the last minute. … Had they decided earlier to file a brief, they could have just gotten credit for it, but instead it became a controversy. They got credit at the end, but it still felt like it was begrudging support.”

In the wake of the filing, advocates say they continue to want more from Obama on LGBT issues and at the top of the list is signing an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT workers.

HRC’s Sainz was among those saying the directive is next on the plate for LGBT advocates in terms of administrative action.

“The non-discrimination executive order definitely remains our top priority, so that is where we turn our attention to next,” Sainz said.

Socarides said he wants Obama to sign the executive order, but also wants Obama to push ahead with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act amid promises from Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to advance the legislation this year.

“It’s past time for the president to sign the executive order extending non-discrimination provisions to federal contractors,” Socarides said. “I’m hoping that he will do that soon, and at the same time, continue to fight and actually fight more aggressively for ENDA, for federal legislation, and I think that we can flip the House Democratic in the next mid-term election, we could have a pretty good chance of getting ENDA in two years.”

Other requests include the appointment of an openly LGBT Cabinet member and holding in abeyance the marriage-based green cards for married bi-national couples until the Supreme Court makes a final determination on DOMA.

Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said Obama remains concerned about LGBT issues and will continue to work on them.

“President Obama is proud of the strong record he’s established on LGBT rights, and he looks forward to building on that progress in the months and years to come,” Inouye said.

Aravosis said predicting whether the administration will follow the brief with other actions that benefit the LGBT community is difficult — but that doesn’t mean advocates should stop pushing for them to happen.

“People who aren’t necessarily working on your issues don’t understand that one fix does not address every problem, and they get sort of annoyed sometimes when we keep asking for more,” Aravosis said. “We keep asking for more because we don’t have our equal rights yet. Once we get full and equal rights, then you can complain that we’re asking for too much, but we have less than everybody else right now.”

1 year later: A look back at Obama’s support for marriage

Barack Obama, White House, Democratic Party, gay news, Washington Blade, Robin Roberts

President Obama comes out for marriage equality in an ABC News interview (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Amid cheers over recent marriage equality victories in Rhode Island and Delaware, supporters of same-sex marriage are marking the one-year anniversary of President Obama coming out for marriage equality, calling it a milestone that helped lead to the successes of the past year.

It was a year ago, on May 9, 2012, when Obama declared in an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts that he had grown to support same-sex marriage.

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said.

The decision, Obama said, came as the result of speaking with gay members of the armed forces during the debate on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and realizing they should have equal access to the institution of marriage.

But the president was careful to limit the scope of his support. Obama said he was hesitant to make an announcement in favor of marriage equality because he “didn’t want to nationalize the issue” and maintained that he believes the marriage issue remains one best left to the states.

And the announcement wasn’t spontaneous. The president endorsed same-sex marriage after saying for 19 months he was in a state of evolution on the issue. Obama finally made the announcement just three days after Vice President Joseph Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’s “absolutely comfortable” with married same-sex couples having the “same exact rights” as others.

Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality was seen as a watershed moment because no sitting U.S. president had ever come out for marriage equality and supporters of same-sex marriage hoped his words would influence others to join the president in completing their evolution on the issue.

Arguably, that happened. In the days after the announcement, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a majority of black Americans, 59 percent, had also come to support same-sex marriage — up 18 points after the president’s announcement.

Dan Pinello, who’s gay and a political scientist at the City University of New York, identified this growth in support of marriage equality among black Americans as one of the most immediate consequences of Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality.

“Polling data show a statistically significant increase in support for same-sex marriage among black respondents for the periods immediately before and after Obama’s announcement,” Pinello said. “In turn, this increased support probably was crucial in a state with a large African-American-voter contingent like Maryland, which narrowly approved of gay nuptials last November.”

The growth in support isn’t limited to black Americans. Another widely noticed poll in March from Washington Post-ABC News found that 58 percent of the American public had come to support same-sex marriage.

And in the wake of the president’s announcement, substantive changes were seen in favor of marriage equality throughout the country. For the first time ever, the Democratic Party platform in 2012 endorsed marriage equality. In another first, voters legalized same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland and Washington State at the ballot in November, while voters in Minnesota rejected a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In the past week, Rhode Island and Delaware became the latest to join other states in legalizing marriage equality.

Moreover, a bevy of U.S. senators have followed in Obama’s tracks by coming out for same-sex marriage. The ones who have come out since the beginning of this year include Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo,), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) as well as Republicans Rob Portman (Ohio) and Mark Kirk (Ill.). Now all but three members of the Democratic caucus — Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) — back marriage equality.

Pinello said Obama articulating his views a year ago in favor of marriage equality helped set the tone for the Democratic Party that has enabled other lawmakers to come out for same-sex marriage.

“The president set a standard for the Democratic Party, encouraging its other officeholders to emulate his leadership on the issue,” Pinello said. “For example, I doubt that there would be nearly unanimous support for marriage equality among Democrats in the U.S. Senate today without Obama’s action a year ago.”

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reflected on the president’s current views on marriage equality when asked by Sirius XM Radio’s Jared Rizzi if Obama still thinks that state-by-state is the best way to address the issue in the wake of Delaware becoming the 11th state with same-sex marriage on the books.

“There has been enormous progress made,” Carney said. “I think that the facts, as you just recited them, demonstrate the progress made. The president’s views are known. He’s expressed them. Our views on issues like DOMA and Prop 8 have been expressed in legal filings, so I’ll point you to those. For him, it’s a fundamental issue of equal rights, and that’s why he has taken the position that he has taken. But for our legal approach to these issues, I would refer you to the Department of Justice.”

But Obama hit another milestone on Election Day six months after his announcement by winning re-election to the White House despite predictions that coming out for marriage equality would jeopardize his re-election prospects. Although he didn’t win as he did in 2008 North Carolina, a state with a significant evangelical population, Obama walloped Mitt Romney in the electoral college by taking 332 votes in the Electoral College compared to Romney’s 206.

Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said Obama’s victory after coming out for marriage equality is having a major impact as LGBT advocates push more states to legalize same-sex marriage.

“The president proved that elected officials — at the highest of levels — could be for marriage, campaign on it and be reelected, in fact, based on their support,” Sainz said. “Without that shining example, we may not have the number of senators we do today or have been able to recruit the legislators we need to support marriage in Rhode Island and Delaware and soon in Minnesota and Illinois.”

Obama’s support for marriage equality hasn’t been limited to his words in that May interview. Days before the election, newspapers in Maryland, Maine and Washington State published statements from his campaign urging voters in those states to legalize marriage equality at the ballot. After Obama endorsed legislation in favor of marriage equality in Illinois, Organizing for Action, the successor organization to the Obama campaign, sent out action alerts to its members in the state calling on them to help pass the marriage equality legislation.

Most notably, Obama raised the bar on his position in favor of same-sex marriage by having his Justice Department file a friend-of-the-court brief in the pending lawsuit before the Supreme Court challenging California’s Proposition 8. That brief argued the ban on same-sex marriage in California was unconstitutional and suggested similar bans in other states were unconstitutional.

Even before Obama endorsed marriage equality, his administration had already stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court in addition to aiding litigation by filing briefs and arguing against the law in oral arguments.

John Aravosis, who’s gay and editor of AMERICAblog, said Obama has done a “pretty good job” in acting on his position in favor of marriage equality, but added he could do more — particularly in advocating for immigration reform that would enable gay Americans to sponsor foreign spouses for residency within the country.

“If we sort of think through the things that we wanted him to do in the last year on marriage, he’s done a lot of them,” Aravosis said. “The only one I can think of [him not doing] is putting his foot down on immigration reform and saying, ‘This shall not pass if you discriminate against gays.’ It’s the only one I can think of off the top of my head where he needs to do a better job in terms of putting his foot down.”

Aravosis added to some degree the onus is on the LGBT community in terms of “coming up with the list of pro-marriage needs to do” because “rabble-rousing” on the legal briefs in the Prop 8 case eventually led the administration to file them.

It remains to be seen what impact the president’s words will have in future battles over marriage equality. Will lawmakers in Minnesota and Illinois heed Obama’s words as they consider whether to become the 12th and 13th states to legalize same-sex marriage? Will the U.S. Supreme Court draw upon President Obama’s words in rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop 8?

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said he expects Obama’s words from a year ago to continue to have an impact in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision and future legislative wins.

“The president’s strong support for the freedom to marry adds to the case we are making in the Supreme Court, signaling to the justices that America is ready for the freedom to marry and they can do the right thing knowing that not only will history vindicate them, but the public will embrace a right ruling,” Wolfson said. “And we’ve already seen how the president’s leadership — and resonant explanation of how he changed his mind  — adds to the momentum in state battles, ongoing and to come.”