WASHINGTON, D.C., November 13, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – President Obama's promotion of the LGBT agenda has earned him the title of “Ally of the Year” by “Out Magazine.”
It has also made him the first U.S. president to appear on the cover of an LGBT magazine.
“[T]his president and his administration have ushered extraordinary change into the lives of LGBT Americans,” wrote “Out” reporter Aaron Hicklin. “For someone who at first seemed coy, even awkward, on the subject, President Obama's evolution on marriage equality has been something to behold.”
While President Obama proclaimed to believe marriage was between a man and a woman until late in 2012, many political observers assumed this was due to political expediency – something former White House advisor David Axelrod verified earlier this year.
According to Hicklin, Obama has pushed “important legislation, including the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell,'” and “other signal achievements” that include “an order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, passage of the first federal LGBT law … encouraging the end to a ban on transgender military service, and the ongoing effort to create a more diverse judiciary.”
“His nomination of Eric Fanning to be secretary of the Army, if successful, will make him the first openly gay head of a military branch.”
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Many legal observers and social conservatives are not cheering what the LGBT community believes are President Obama's accomplishments, however. To them, laws giving gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans special status are risky to religious liberty.
Obama told Hicklin that “I am a man of faith and believe deeply in religious freedom, but at the end of the day, nobody is above the rule of law – especially someone who voluntarily takes an oath to uphold that law. That's something we've got to respect.”
Hicklin had asked the president about Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and others “who feel they are being forced to choose between the law and their conscience.”
President Obama did not address how his retired attorney general, Eric Holder, told state attorneys general that they could ignore state laws protecting marriage while still in office.
Obama also indicated that he had supported the redefinition of marriage long before 2012, telling Hickman that his support for what the Out reporter called “LGBT equality” “really goes back to when I was a kid, because my mom instilled in me the strong belief that every person is of equal worth.”
“One of the reasons I got involved in politics was to help deliver on our promise that we're all created equal, and that no one should be excluded from the American dream just because of who they are. That's why, in the Senate, I supported repealing DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]. It's why, when I ran for president the first time, I publicly asked for the support of the LGBT community, and promised that we could bring about real change for LGBT Americans.”
Obama has also not been above stretching the rule of law to accomplish his goals for LGBT activists, including by threatening to withhold funding from schools that don't let transgender teenagers use facilities designed for the opposite sex.
