Kerry Eleveld, like Frank Rich, is awfully hard to excerpt well and do full justice to her writing. Here’s my attempt, but please do read her entire piece – the first page alone was worth quoting in its entirety:
Barack Obama was out on the stump in Madison, Wis., doing an admirable job of trying to recapture a little of that ol’ 2008 campaign magic. And guess what he was talking about: fighting.
“That election was not just about putting me in the White House. It was about building a movement for change that went beyond any one campaign or any one candidate. It was about remembering that in the United States of America, our destiny is not written for us –- it is written by us,” he told a raucous college-age crowd. “The power to shape our future lies in our hands –- but only if we’re willing to keep working for it and fighting for it and keep believing that change is possible.”
[W]hen Barack Obama took office, only one state legally recognized same-sex marriages. Now five do, including one in the Midwest and two that approved it through the legislature rather than the courts. In the past couple months, two very separate polls have found that a majority of the American people now support same-sex marriage.
One federal judge has ruled part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, while another federal judge said the same of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and yet a third federal judge ruled the discharge of a service member under the policy unconstitutional.
Poll after poll after poll finds that anywhere from 65% to 75% of the public believe gays and lesbians should be able to serve their country openly, including a solid majority of self-identified conservatives and Republicans.
A tidal wave of change is rolling through America, and yet this president and Democratic Congress accomplished only hate-crimes — a measure that had already passed both chambers of Congress once before but was nixed from its host legislation based on a veto threat from President George W. Bush.
Hate crimes.
Where’s the fight, Mr. President? Our kids are committing suicide because our government continues to tell them their lives are less valuable than those of their peers. That they cannot grow up and participate in our society like every other American. That they cannot share in the institution by which our society measures and values love. That they are too embarrassing to fight for our country in full view of their countrymen. That freedom apparently does not mean freedom for everyone.
Where’s the fight, Mr. President?
