Obama: Our First Gay President

In 1998, Toni Morrison dubbed Bill Clinton “the first black president.” Advocate contributor Charles Perez says President Obama is on track to earn a title of his own.

By Charles Perez

COMMENTARY: Barack Obama could turn out to be America’s first gay president. Many of us thought it would have been Bill Clinton. It wasn’t. Excepting James Buchanan, our 15th and only never-married president, and Abraham Lincoln, who was rumored to have shared his bed with a male friend for reasons of economy and warmth, it’s beginning to look as if Barack Obama may be it.

Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison dubbed Bill Clinton “the first black president” back in 1998. The first gay president may be the closeted Obama, who has stealthily hidden a very progressive gay rights agenda behind garments made of compromise and incrementalism. But now he’s stepping out. According to Andrew Sullivan in a recent Atlantic article, “He is coming through — more cunningly than most of us grasped.”

Two weeks ago, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department will no longer defend antigay legislation passed by Congress and signed into law in 1996 by President Clinton. It was a bold move with little precedent.

According to the attorney general, both he and President Obama concluded that at least part of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. At issue is the third section, which denies federal benefits to gay and lesbian couples married in states that recognize gay unions.

The decision came in part because of the marriage and death of Thea Spyer. Back in 1963, Spyer met and fell in love with Edith Windsor. The two went on to build a life together for over four decades, each wearing a pearl pin in place of a ring, so as not to give away their often-secret relationship. Finally, after a 40-year engagement, they were married in Canada.

Two years ago Thea Spyer died, where they lived, in New York State, leaving her estate to her wife, Edith Windsor. Though gay marriage is not legal in New York, the Empire State does recognize legal same-sex unions performed in other states, territories, and nations. The federal government, however, does not.

Spyer’s death not only brought an end to their 46-year relationship, it also brought a federal tax bill of $363,053. Windsor would have been exempt had she been married to a man. READ MORE HERE....