Town Hall: The Gay Questions Obama Didn’t Answer

Obama Chose To Follow “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue”.

 

President Obama hosted an “Online Town Hall” today. Americans were invited to ask questions in advance, online via The White House’s web site. The Town Hall was supposed to focus on the economy, but, of course, the economy is all-encompassing.

The president chose to follow the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy of prior administrations by not addressing any gay rights-related questions. Given the short time frame and large number of questions, it’s understandable. Obama answered six questions, mostly related to healthcare, that had been submitted online. He also chose to answer a very frequent general question: The economy is in dire straits. Will marijuana get legalized? His answer: “No, legailzing marijuana is not a good strategy to grow our economy.”

I submitted a question on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and the “Defense of Marriage Act”, asking the president to protect the civil rights of gay Americans and repeal these marginalizing programs. I also voted on over sixty questions, which is the number I found just by searching “gay” last night.

This morning, searching for “gay”, I found 193 questions! I see we’ve been hard at work and our social networks, which many of us used to alert people to ask questions and vote, have been effective. 

What follows are some of those questions, and some thoughts about what we’re really thinking.

• First, none of the questions I read were anti-gay. There were no, please don’t repeal DADT or DOMA. No, please make sure gays never get married. That’s good, because the questions go live the moment you ask them. 
• 92,930 people submitted 104,107 questions and cast 3,606,635 votes.

There were:

• 33 questions asked on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
• 78 questions asked about gay marriage
• 66 questions asked about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT)
• Combined, there were 284 questions that mentioned either “gay” or “same-sex”, with possibly some overlap between the two.

Here are a few excellent questions that didn’t get addressed: