Obama Announces 'Bilateral Talks' With Lady Gaga on Gays

October 2nd, 2011 8:18 AM

President Obama spoke to the National Dinner of the gay-left Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night and began by joking: "I appreciate the chance to join you tonight.  I also took a trip out to California last week, where I held some productive bilateral talks with your leader, Lady Gaga. She was wearing 16-inch heels.  She was eight feet tall. It was a little intimidating." Then he said he couldn't give a long speech, because "Cyndi Lauper is in the house.  I can't compete with that."

Overall, his theme was that a "big America" supports homosexuality, and conservatives favor a "small America." He took a shot at Republicans for failing to denounce about two boos at a debate for a soldier on tape demanding Rick Santorum not turn the clock back on gay liberation. "We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the President of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed. " Alert to PolitiFact: Obama lied by saying they've been "silent since."

For his part, Santorum told Fox News he hadn't heard the boos but denounced them. "I condemn the people who booed that gay soldier." Obama claimed:

We don’t believe in a small America.  We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the President of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed.  We don’t believe in that.  We don’t believe in standing silent when that happens.  We don’t believe in them being silent since.  You want to be Commander-in-Chief?  You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.

Hmm, that's funny. I don't recall Obama standing up for Navy SEALs when they were accused of brutality to captured Muslim terror suspects. The charges were dismissed, and Obama and his media weren't interested.

But Obama seems to be saying something he wouldn't support to its logical conclusion. He wouldn't condemn booing if a soldier said something racist, or insisted gays don't belong in the military. He supported for president in 2004 a soldier who came home and denounced his fellow soldiers for atrocities in Vietnam.

Lady Gaga recently attended a San Francisco $35,800-a-person fundraiser for Obama as a paying guest at the home of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and applauded the president for being against bullying.

Obama certainly sounded to this crowd like he wanted to give them and Lady Gaga every legislative victory they seek -- an Employment Non-Discrimination Act, gay marriage, "anti-bullying" education to spread the gay gospel in grade schools. 

Every single American -- gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender -- every single American deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our society.  It's a pretty simple proposition.

Now, I don't have to tell you that we have a ways to go in that struggle. I don't have to tell you how many are still denied their basic rights -- Americans who are still made to feel like second-class citizens, who have to live a lie to keep their jobs, or who are afraid to walk the street, or down the hall at school.  Many of you have devoted your lives to the cause of equality.  So you know what we have to do; we've got more work ahead of us."

Obama also saw the fight for gay liberation happening at "church socials and VFW halls" and "PTA meetings."

It’s playing out in legislatures like New York, and courtrooms and in the ballot box.  But it’s also happening around water coolers and at the Thanksgiving table, and on Facebook and Twitter, and at PTA meetings and potluck dinners, and church socials and VFW Halls.

PS: There was also a Big vs. Small lecture on the general economic front, where apparently a Big America pushes an annual Big Trillion Dollar Deficit:

I don’t believe -- we don’t believe -- in a small America, where we let our roads crumble, we let our schools fall apart, where we stand by while teachers are laid off and science labs are shut down, and kids are dropping out.

We believe in a big America, an America that invests in the future -- that invests in schools and highways and research and technology -- the things that have helped make our economy the envy of the world.

We don’t believe in a small America, where we meet our fiscal responsibilities by abdicating every other responsibility we have, and where we just divvy up the government as tax breaks for those who need them the least, where we abandon the commitment we’ve made to seniors though Medicare and Social Security, and we say to somebody looking for work, or a student who needs a college loan, or a middle-class family with a child who’s disabled, that “You’re on your own.”  That’s not who we are.