During his two terms in office, Barack Obama pursued a wide-ranging domestic agenda aimed at stabilizing the economy and expanding access to key services. In response to the Great Recession, his administration passed a major economic stimulus package designed to spur job growth and prevent further economic decline.
He also signed the Affordable Care Act, extending health insurance coverage to millions of Americans and introducing sweeping changes to the healthcare system. Obama’s presidency also included significant actions on social and environmental policy.
His administration supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, a shift that coincided with the landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. On climate change, he played a central role in negotiating the Paris Agreement, committing the United States to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
He also introduced regulations aimed at limiting pollution from power plants and increasing fuel efficiency standards. In foreign policy, Obama oversaw major developments, including the operation that led to the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. His administration also worked to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba after decades of tension and negotiated the Iran Nuclear Deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
While his policies drew both praise and criticism, Obama’s presidency left a lasting impact on domestic policy, international relations, and the broader political landscape in the United States.
And Trump is hell bent on destroying everything President Obama and President Biden accomplished because he is nothing more than a spoiled, racist brat!!
07-02-25 | On the evening SCOTUS returned its Pride-affirming Obergefell decision, June, 26, 2015, President Obama lit the White House for Pride. That night he said this: “This ruling is a victory for Jim Obergefell and the other plaintiffs in the case... This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal we are all more free.” wgm-beautiful-world posted this for Pride some time ago. misterlemonzlime.tumblr.com/archive
I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the overturn of Roe v Wade will lead to the overturn of Obergefell v. Hodges and same-sex marriage. While I wouldn’t put anything past this court, Obergefell was decided on equal protection and due process grounds, not under a Right to Privacy.
Also, finding the Right to Privacy does not protect abortion rights (something that, to be clear, I disagree with) does not mean that Birth Control, sex acts (sodomy laws) or possession of obscene material are not protected by the Right to Privacy. Alito explicitly said this case is only about abortion.
Further, same-sex marriage has more public support than the Right to Abortion. While public opinion should not dictate what rights people have, more than half of Republicans support same-sex marriage, while only around a quarter are pro-choice. This is reflected in the fact that Gorsuch joined the majority in Bostock v. Clayton County, finding Title VII protects against LGBT discrimination in the workplace. While Kavanaugh dissented on technical grounds, he indicated support for LGBT rights generally as he did so, and seems unlikely to overturn major pro-LGBT precedent in this area.
Finally, while there are clearly five votes to overturn Roe, that does not mean there are five votes to join Alito’s opinion. Kavanaugh, Barrett or Roberts could well right a concurrence that overturns Roe but leaves some limits on how much States can regulate abortion. I can imagine one of them concurring in the judgment (overturning Roe) but specifying that for certain cases (most likely to save the Life of the Mother) States cannot ban abortion, or even going so far as to set a new number of weeks (not likely). The concurrence will control even if it is only 1 justice concurring, and 4 joining the entirety of Alito’s opinion (assuming 4 dissenters).
Tl;dr Whatever the Dobbs decision is, it will have horrible impact. But extrapolating the overturn of Roe v. Wade to unrelated areas of law, and assuming Alito’s opinion has five votes is not warranted. Yet.
I can't stop thinking about the fact that this decision happened almost seven years to the day after Obergefell.
Gay marriage was legalized in this country the summer after I graduated from high school. Just a few weeks after I walked across the stage that symbolized my transition into adulthood.
I don't think I can truly describe how much that impacted me. That I was literally becoming an adult into a world that was becoming bigger and more beautiful and more accepting than it had been.
Seeing the headlines and the celebrations. Having my mom come home excited to ask if I'd seen the news because one of the moms she'd been out with was in happy tears over what this meant for her daughter (this daughter also happened to be our senior class's cutest couple recipient with her girlfriend). It's a core memory I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
But now, 7 years later, our kids are graduating into a much, much different world. And world that has refused to protect them from gun violence in their classrooms for the last decade. A world that is stripping away their fundamental rights instead of enshrining them.
I can't imagine what it would be like to be 18 now, to have this be the world you're graduating into. Sometimes I feel like the last generation that got to be happy, even for a moment.
The opinion released by SCOTUS Justices Alito and Thomas (pgs. 55-58) is complete bullshit, and the poorly concealed, transparent call to overturn Obergefell is a direct attack on the lgbtq+ population in the United States. Longer rant under the cut.
The argument that Obergefell violates religious liberties because it leads to those who hold bias against same-sex marriage being called “bigots” is a misunderstanding of what the first amendment actually does. The first amendment does not protect people from other members of the population. The first amendment protects people from the government. The first amendment’s protection of “Freedom of Speech” does not, for example, protect you from your college roommate calling you an idiot on facebook because you posted a bad take. Instead, it just means that the government can’t come after your ass and tell you not to tweet that you don’t want to vote for Trump.
Similarly, the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to keep people who are openly prejudiced against lgbtq+ from being called “bigots” just be cause they are prejudiced under the mantra of “religious beliefs”? That’s not how religious freedom under the first amendment works. Religious freedom means that you can’t be arrested in the street for being Muslim or Sikh or Jewish.
And if the argument you are going to raise is because of Kim Davis and the argument that she was made to go against her religious beliefs through her legal obligation to provide marriage certificates to same-sex couples, maybe--maybe--you have legal argument (even if it’s a shitty moral one). Even then, I would passionately argue that if you’re religious beliefs keep you from complying with the law in such a way that you are keeping others from basic rights, then you have a moral obligation to stand down and find a new line of work. One that doesn’t conflict with your--yes, bigoted--views.
But that’s not even the real argument the opinion addresses. The released statement instead worries about whether or not the views and actions of those who would stand in the way of same-sex relationships would be dismissed as bigotted. And I got news for SCOTUS: they are, by definition, bigotted. And believe it or not: that absolutely gives people the right to dismiss that opinion.
Because lets look at the definition of ‘bigot’. Bigot, according to Miriam-Webster, is “a person who obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance”. “Intolerant”, by definition, means an unwillingness to “allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with”. So if a “bigot” is, by definition, someone who is unwilling to allow the existence of beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own due to complete devotion to their own opinions and prejudices”... and ‘bigoted’ is merely the adjective form of that noun, then yes. Those views are bigotted, and those who hold them are bigots.
Literally by definition, those who oppose same-sex marriage on the grounds of religious beliefs have a bigotted view on the subject. If it walks like a duck... you understand my point. It is not the government’s legal obligation to protect them from that label, regardless of the justification they provide for it. And if it is that--as I’ve proven is denotatively is--is it such a bad thing that we are more likely to dismiss those beliefs? Doesn’t that mean we are becoming more accepting, more loving, more progressed as a society?
The other argument Thomas tries to make--with less emphasis, so much so that it reads more like an afterthought than a real argument--is that claiming that same-sex marriage being defended by the constitution is “atextual constitutional rights”. Newsflash for Thomas: the constitution says nothing about marriage, period. ANY constitutional argument regarding marriage (including what does and does not, should or should not count as such) is “atextual”. That includes trying to define it by the narrow scope of “one man and one woman”. Besides, if Thomas is going to also claim that defense of same-sex marriage is “ungenerous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause”, I don’t know how to explain to him that plenty of denominations and faiths embrace same-sex marriage--and walking back the law that protects them could absolutely be considered its own violation of the Free Exercise Clause.
Honestly, going forward? Long term? I don’t know what this opinion means. I don’t know if SCOTUS is actually going to try to overturn Obergefell or not. I do know that if Barrett is appointed and SCOTUS tries to overturn it, I’m not holding my breath about a good outcome. But I do know that even if worse comes to worse, we’re not going anywhere. The fight for queer rights isn’t going anywhere.
We’re here, we’re queer, and we’ll make some fucking noise.
As someone who met my partner before marriage was legal, was clear about my interest in a lifelong commitment to her whether or not legal structures were available, and who also made the choice to get legally married when it became available, I want to offer love and reassurance as best I can to those folks out there for whom the recent appointment fanned new feelings of urgency and fear. Yes, the future she seems to represent is terrifying, and will make it harder for some of us to protect the kinds of families we want to build.
AND - and I say this with deep love and compassion - I don't want you to feel pressured to get legal married just because suddenly it might be taken away. There are definite upsides to the legal status - tax breaks, property transfers, to some extent family protections, for some of us, immigration status, and in a way that means a lot to me as a currently unemployed person, health insurance where your partner isn't taxed on the cost as though it is additional income. But it is my hope for you that most of those things are not the primary reasons you rush to get legally married. They're side-perks, not the main attraction.
We have been able to get legally married for about five years, and for decades before that we built families, had legal structures to protect our things and our loved ones, and figured out how to live and have partnership. And we did it without the validation of the state.
I do not mean or desire to diminish the real concerns of this moment, nor to appear callous to your fear. I hope instead to reaffirm to you that actually, our communities know how to do this, how to survive without this, and if it becomes necessary, we will pick back up the tools some of us thought we'd put away.
And we will fight, as generations before us have fought, for the livability of all people. Perhaps we will fight to dislodge the centrality of monogamous relationships from their place of primacy as a gatekeeping device that dictates things like tax brackets, citizenship, access to healthcare, and family protections. Perhaps we will seek to dismantle these things also because we know that even if these things remain available to us, they are still out of reach for our friends in the polycule, or our colleagues on Medicare for whom marriage would mean losing their medical access, or our grandma and her boyfriend who would both lose a significant portion of their social security income if they got married.
Perhaps the TL;DR version here is: consider what marriage as a legal institution grants you, and who it leaves out. Not because you should not get married, but because you and the person (or people) you are ideally going to spend the rest of your life choosing every day deserve not to be rushed into it or rubber stamped. People get legally married for lots of good reasons, and also don't get legally married for lots of good reasons. You are not obligated to rush into this complicated legal structure simply because it feels like your window of opportunity is closing.
You have never needed the approval of the state to choose who you want to commit your life to.
