You should never have to look over your shoulder

Obama spoke this evening at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner. I assume he dined on the flesh of his enemies. The Human Rights Campaign is a gay group, so he started off with a joke about how he had held “productive bilateral talks with your leader, Lady Gaga.” Stop trying to make jokes, Barry. Just stop.

INSERT, ER, INTERJECT YOUR OWN DOUBLE ENTENDRE HERE: “you should never have to look over your shoulder -- to be gay in the United States of America.”

INTERJECT YOUR OWN DOUBLE ENTENDRE HERE: “it took two years to get the [Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell] repeal through Congress. (Applause.) We had to hold a coalition together. We had to keep up the pressure. We took some flak along the way.” Adding, “No one has to live a lie to serve the country they love.” I was contemplating some joke about him being a Kenyan or something when it occurred to me that somewhere along the line the phrase “serve their country” has come to mean military service exclusively.

He does keep inching closer and closer to supporting gay marriage, without ever quite doing so. Zeno’s Gay Marriage Paradox. He warned today against those trying to turn back the clock, “who, as we speak, are looking to enshrine discrimination into state laws and constitutions,” which can only mean bans on gay marriage, but I guess he wants credit for supporting marriage equality without saying words that would be used in attack ads. Sigh.

He castigates the candidates at the last debate for not criticizing the audience members who booed the gay soldier dude. “You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.” Kind of a weird sentence, that.

Evidently progress in America “happens when a father realizes he doesn’t just love his daughter, but also her wife.” But not in a creepy way.

That said, any time Obama refers to someone in a gay marriage as a husband or wife – I believe I’ve noticed him doing so once before – it counts as a win.

“It [progress, that is] happens when a soldier tells his unit that he’s gay, and they tell him they knew it all along and they didn’t care, because he was the toughest guy in the unit.” Heh, he said “toughest guy in the unit.” Note that to be accepted, gay soldiers evidently have to be “tougher” than straight soldiers.