There’s been a lot of hubbub in the last few weeks over DADT. Central District of California Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction against the policy worldwide, probably overstepping her authority to do so; recently she denied a stay of her ruling, forcing the Defense Department into an awkward position, which they are dealing with by admirably complying with the ruling and accepting, for the moment, the openly gay applicants that they should have taken all along.

Legally a messy situation, but policy wise, a real step forward.

Naturally, being the enemies of sound policy, the Obama Administration has appealed to the 9th Circuit, and their appeal is a humdinger too. Instead of merely arguing over the technical merits of Phillips’ worldwide injunction, they mounted a spirited defense of the constitutionality of DADT, an inherently discriminatory policy that turns gay Americans into second-class citizens:

What is very troubling, however, is that the Administration, by and through the DOJ never – never – indicates that it considers DADT to be unconstitutional on its face. Every objection by team Obama is in favor simply of study and legislative repeal; and, in fact, they doggedly protect the constitutionality of DADT. There is a HUGE difference between the two concepts of saying it is simply something that should be fixed by Congress (increasingly unlikely, it should be added, in light of the massive gains conservative Republicans are poised to make) and saying the Administration fully believes the policy unconstitutional and invidiously discriminatory (the position Obama blatantly refuses to make).

It should also be noted that a refusal to acknowledge the fundamental constitutionally discriminatory nature of DADT is also entirely consistent with the recent history of Obama Administration conduct and statements on the issue. Whether it be Obama himself, official spokesman Robert Gibbs or Valerie Jarrett, every time the direct question on constitutionality of DADT is raised, it is deflected with a flimsy response framed in terms of Congressional repeal. At this point, you have to wonder if Barack Obama and his Administration even consider the blatant discrimination of DADT to be of a Constitutional level at all; the evidence certainly is lacking of any such commitment.

This comes a week after top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett referred to being gay as a ‘lifestyle choice’… while discussing the tragic suicide of a bullied teenager no less.

Keep in mind that President Obama is a steadfast opponent of equality for gay Americans in other arenas as well, consistently opposing gay marriage on religious grounds:

In his bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, Obama, now a U.S. senator, explains his support for civil unions, again mentioning religion and noting the strategic problems that the push for gay marriage poses:

For many practicing Christians, the inability to compromise may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith without civil penalty. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every culture. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights no such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex–nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount. …The heightened focus on marriage is a distraction from other, attainable measures to prevent discrimination and gays and lesbians. (pp. 222-3)

Well, since running for higher office, anyway. When he was a younger man, and a less ambitious politician, he at least claimed to hold diametrically opposed views, favoring gay marriage.

Let’s call this what it is. If President Obama opposes equal rights for gays and lesbians because of his religious delusions, then he is a bigot and a closet theocrat. If he’s opposing their equal rights out of mere political expediency, then he is a hypocrite, a liar and a coward, giving comfort to bigots.

Either way, he’s a disgusting excuse for a public figure.

It is preposterous beyond words to sit back and allow him to pass himself off as some sort of moderate while he uses religious fanaticism to publicly justify depriving gay Americans of their equal rights, and refuses to take simple actions entirely at his discretion to stop persecution of American citizens based on their sexual orientation. It is sycophantic beyond belief to point at the minority party in the Senate and act as if it was their nefarious schemes that prevented Obama from stopping DADT, or somehow forced him to make bigoted statements about gay marriage based on his hokey sky-god religion. Obama got into this mess on his own, by reversing his earlier position and by pushing delay after delay instead of acting to defend the Constitutional rights of his own citizens.

He could end DADT today, at least in terms of implementation. He does not, contra his repeated assertions, have to enforce a law that is unconstitutional on its face, and he certainly doesn’t have to vigorously appeal to protect the assertion of its Constitutionality. He could stop trying to insert religion into the public sphere on gay marriage.

He could also hire some advisors who aren’t so gobsmackingly stupid as to defame a dead teenager for his ‘lifestyle choice’ while he’s at it.

So the question becomes: does Obama really believe that gay Americans deserve to live as second-class citizens because of some badly translated Iron Age superstition? Or does he believe that they should live that way to serve his political ends?

Or, perhaps, both?