Saturday, May 19, 2012

Claiming a disputing a title

I saw images of this week's Newsweek cover last Sunday and finished reading the whole magazine a couple days ago, so my mention of this is rather late. So, in case you haven't heard… Andrew Sullivan has declared Obama to be the "first gay president" in the same manner Clinton was declared to be the first Black president. Sullivan has two reasons for bestowing the title. The first is the amount of advancement in gay rights under Obama's watch (particularly Obama's announcement the week before of being for marriage equality which was very emotional for Sullivan). The second is Obama's experience of being a black child raised in a white family being similar to gay kids growing up with straight parents.

Michelangelo Signorile disagrees with Sullivan's second point. Obama wasn't "immersed" in gay culture the same way Clinton was immersed in Black culture.

And Time magazine says Obama can't be the first gay president because we've already had one -- James Buchanan, who was president 1857-1861. I'll let you explore the evidence for that claim on your own.

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