Will Gay Rights Turn Out to Be Obama?s Biggest Legacy?

Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent
Reason contributor) Jonathan Rauch argues yes in an
essay at The New Republic:

When he first campaigned for the White House, Barack Obama vowed
to be a fierce advocate for gay rights, but it hasn?t always been
clear if he intended to keep his promise. Indeed, we gay folks had
gotten used to grousing about the President. We noticed the way he
dragged his feet after promising to repeal the ban on military
service; we felt betrayed when his Justice Department insisted, as
George W. Bush?s had done, that gays have marriage equality
already, because we can already marry someone of the opposite
sex.
To gay Americans, this did not look like the fierce urgency of
now. It looked like more of the same, what gay activists had come
to expect from Democratic politicians: Do as little as you can get
by with to keep the gay lobby quiet, but save political capital for
more important causes and constituencies.
But it?s now clear that the Obama administration has quietly
accumulated an impressive and unprecedented record on gay rights.
Indeed, with his health-care reform bill in jeopardy of being
overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by a future Congress,
there?s a real possibility that his efforts for gay equality will
prove to be his most enduring legacy. The history books may
remember Obama for doing for gays what Lyndon Johnson did for
African Americans: Leading his party across a bridge to an
irrevocable position on civil rights.

Read the whole thing
here. For more on Obama?s gay marriage endorsement, see

here and
here.

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