In his new book entitled Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, former Chief Advisor to the President David Axelrod claims that President Obama purposefully misled the public on his position concerning gay marriage when he ran for President in 2008.
Axelrod states that Obama was in favor of same-sex marriage, but that he advised the candidate to claim he opposed it in order to win over voters in the “black church.” Obama publicly announced that he had changed his position prior to the presidential election of 2012, just as polling began to suggest that a majority of Americans were embracing the idea.
The Democratic Party consequently became the first major American political party to advocate for same-sex marriage in their 2012 platform. Most elected officials in the Democratic Party soon followed Obama. Out of the 44 current Democratic US Senators, 43 have proclaimed their support for same-sex marriage (Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the lone exception). Additionally, all 18 Democratic governors support same-sex marriage.
As can be seen, support for same-sex marriage has become a litmus test of sorts for the current-day Democratic Party, even though it was Democratic President Bill Clinton who instituted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1994. Clinton also signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996 with the support of 118 House Democrats and 32 Democratic Senators (including Harry Reid, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd).
All of these facts together give us a clear picture: Democrats could care less about equality or liberty for those in the gay community. Like so many other minority groups, Democrats pander to gay Americans when it is politically expedient. However, if it is not politically beneficial, they will be quick to throw anyone under the bus.
This is certainly not to let Republicans off of the hook, either. The GOP picked the other side of the gay rights debate in 1980 and reaped the benefits of that position in every election from 1980 through 2004 (a period during which they not coincidentally won 5 out of 7 presidential elections). It just so happens that now, they are on the wrong side of both the American public and the matter of liberty.
What should become even clearer through all of these observations is the false narrative of any real party differences between elected officials. Both parties are quick to jump on the fashionable position of the day, with no regard for principles or ideology. It is for this reason that I cringe anytime that libertarianism is described as “fiscally conservative” and “socially liberal.”
When President George W. Bush began his presidency, many believed that he would become one of the most economically conservative Presidents in US history. Although he drastically cut taxes, he added more to the deficit than all of his predecessors combined (a feat which President Obama easily matched). To this day, you are bound to hear uninformed voters state that Bush’s “radical free market capitalist policies” helped lead to the Great Recession.
Similarly, the party which proudly wears the badge of “social liberalism” has a checkered history to say the least. While it may not be fair to pin on the current Democratic Party their past support for slavery, opposition to women’s suffrage and support for Jim Crow laws, the previously mentioned support-by-convenience of groups like the aforementioned gay Americans, as well as women, black Americans and Hispanic Americans should receive extra scrutiny.
In conclusion, the advent that President Obama lied in order to win votes is sadly not surprising. For all of the grandiose statements he made in 2008 about permanently changing “business in Washington,” Obama has turned out to be the same as usual and worse. The President has shown that he will exploit and use anyone who can help in achieving his agenda and that he will distort the truth as is necessary.
