Embracing homosexuality is America’s future, Obama says in State of the Union
President
Obama hailed gay "marriage" as one of his proudest accomplishments
and looked forward to the day when Americans would shed traditional sexual
morality to embrace homosexuals in his final State of the Union address last
night.
The president
told a combined chamber of Congress, Cabinet members, and most of the Supreme
Court that upholding our "unique strengths as a nation" and heeding
the "spirit of progress" made our national celebration of sexual
minorities possible.
"That's
how we secured the freedom in every state to marry the person you love,"
Obama said early in his rather short national address.
The reference
to a highly contested, 5-4 Supreme Court decision infuriated pro-family
advocates.
"The
Republican leadership ought to set aside an empty chair in the front of the
chamber to represent the more than 50 million Americans whose votes in support
of traditional marriage were stolen by...an anti-constitutional, illegitimate
ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for
Marriage.
"It's a national insult that President Obama would celebrate such an
affront to democracy."
To underscore
his commitment to the issue, First Lady Michelle Obama invited James Obergefell,
the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, as one of her special guests. Ohio
Congressman Jim Jordan gave a spare ticket to the Family
Research Council,
which in turn invited county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage
licenses to same-sex couples on religious liberty grounds. Obergefell said if
he confronted Davis, he would tell her that her stance "isn't right, it
isn't fair, and isn't what America is about," but there is no indication
that the two met. For her part, Davis said she hoped her presence helped
"encourage" Christians who "want to make a difference" in
our nation.
The
president, who gave his final State of the Union address, returned to the
subject of homosexuality later in the hour-long speech.
"I have
such incredible confidence in our future, because I see your quiet, sturdy
citizenship all the time," he said.
He said he
found hope in "the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and
the father whose love for that son overrides everything he's been taught"
about homosexual behavior.
Once again,
Obama made no reference to abortion in the national address, although he
praised ObamaCare, saying that premium hikes caused by "health insurance
inflation" were now increasing at a lower rate than in previous years.
He once again
advanced federal intervention in education policy, calling the No Child Left
Behind bill "an important start" to offering universal, publicly
funded preschool.
"In the
coming years, we should build on that progress, by providing Pre-K for
all," he said.
Obama has
advocated federally funded daycare since his first presidential campaign in
2008, mentioning it in previous
State of the Union addresses, and even including a reference in the nation's first-ever
report to the UN Human Rights Council.
Policy
experts warn that the new entitlement would not be helpful, and that most
Americans do not want that kind of government tinkering with traditional family
roles.
“Families
seem to prefer caring for their children at home in their early years,"
said Lindsey Burke, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
Multiple
studies show that any educational benefit the child received by attending Head
Start disappears by the spring of first grade, but well-documented
"negative effects of preschool on children’s behavior" - such as increased
aggression andarrested
emotional development - "remain.”
Obama took
several swipes at Republican presidential hopefuls Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and
Marco Rubio, although not by name.
He warned
that, without heeding his advice, America may descend into a virtual civil war
fueled by xenophobic religious fanatics bitterly clinging to their guns,
religion, and antipathy to those who are different.
Unnamed
forces may soon "roll back the equal rights and voting rights that
generations of Americans have fought, even died, to secure," he warned
darkly. "As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back
into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don't look like us, or pray like
us, or vote like we do, or share the same background."
During past
epochs, he said, "there have been those who told us to fear the future;
who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory
if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control.
And each time, we overcame those fears."
In one of the
more remarked upon passages of his speech, Obama lamented the fractious nature
of American political discourse - something his rivals said he has done more
than anyone to create.
"It's
one of the few regrets of my presidency ," he said, " that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten
worse instead of better."
Actions that
lead to this outcome include questioning the other side's motives, he said.
However, the
Obama administration has released multiple
reports accusingChristians
and members of the pro-life movement of being incipient domestic terrorists and held a joint
training session on terrorism led by Planned Parenthood. The rhetorical gambit
has been picked up
by Hillary Clinton.
Obama
promised to "keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office."
Sen. Marco
Rubio found the remark surreal. "This president has been the single most
divisive political figure this country has had over the last decade," he
said after the annual event.
Overall,
conservatives dismissed the speech. Kim Davis proved to be underwhelmed by the
oration. When asked for her reaction, she replied curtly, "It was a
speech."
