PRESIDENT OBAMA’S order that any hospital accepting Medicare or Medicaid must allow visitation to domestic partners is a significant gesture toward creating a more humane, accepting society. The fact that it feels to most Americans like a basic step, a no-brainer, shows just how much progress has been made in the gay rights movement.
And, indeed, the movement has other items on its agenda, starting with the elimination of the military’s discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy and the repeal, by judicial ruling or act of Congress, of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition even to legally married same-sex couples. Both moves would fix clear injustices, and Obama’s hospital visitation order in no way detracts from their importance.
There is some dissatisfaction among gay-rights advocates with the pace of change under Obama. Clearly, the president chose to move more slowly on these promises than on issues such as stimulus spending, health care reform, and financial regulation. Obviously, he feared having his political agenda derailed by a tempest like the one that accompanied former President Clinton’s attempt, in 1993, to allow gays to serve openly in the military. That furor reflected not only opposition to gay rights, but the perception that the president was prioritizing an issue of importance to a smaller group of Americans over action on broader measures.
Having avoided that pothole, Obama can now move more quickly on other gay-rights issues, which ultimately advance the culture of civil rights and human dignity for all Americans.
