Obama needs to stop claiming credit for passing the Hate Crimes bill

Ben Smith wrote a rather large story yesterday about where the entire gay rights agenda, or lack thereof, stands with this White House. These two grafs stand out:

“The president remains fully committed to advancing LGBT rights. His positions on all of these issues are well-established and well-known. His staff continues to work with Congress on a variety of LGBT issues,” said Jim Messina, the deputy White House chief of staff who is the point man on gay and lesbian issues, citing White House efforts to move hate crimes legislation through the Senate. “While we recognize that some in the community are anxious, the president’s commitment has not wavered.”

....Messina, Bonin said, responded that the White House hadn’t forgotten, and complained that the administration hasn’t gotten enough credit for pushing to outlaw hate crimes against gays and lesbians.

Two points.

1. Positions matters for candidates. Actions matter for presidents. There is no indication that this White House is planning on doing anything, now or in the future, about any major presidential promise on gay civil rights, other than Hate Crimes, which doesn't count for much (as I explain below).

2. They want credit for pushing to outlaw hate crimes? Who exactly is the White House pushing? The bill passed both the House and Senate in the last, more hostile, Congress, and even survived a filibuster attempt. With even more Democrats in this Congress, there isn't anyone needing a push. Obama certainly deserves credit for saying he'd sign the bill, when Bush wouldn't. But that's different than claiming credit for "pushing to outlaw hate crimes" - in essence suggesting that White House pressure is partly responsible for a congressional vote that's already pre-ordained without their help.

Then again, if the White House ever told any of us what it was planning on doing on ENDA or any other key gay civil rights issue, other than reiterating past promises, perhaps we'd know what "push" they're talking about. But that's another story.

Another problem, the Hate Crimes bill is at the bottom of the totem pole, in terms of importance, of promises made by this president to our community. It's an important bill, but hardly as important as Obama's other gay civil rights promises. Yet, somehow, as Joe and I predicted, the Hate Crimes bill is now slowly being elevated to the status of Holy Grail of gay rights bills, as if it's as important as marriage, or DOMA, or DADT - it's not. (I'm leaving out ENDA, because I think it's dead for a long time coming. More on that later.) Our concern is that hate crimes will become law, and then we won't hear from President Obama ever again.

Joe and I helped this president become president. We don't regret that. But damn, it's as if someone in the White House is hell-bent on damaging relations with our community. And it's working.