>> how does that affect the gay community's relationship with the obama administration? >> it's one small step of our goal of full equality under the law. it was what the president was able to do short of new legislation. and it is a reminder that we have an ally in the white house as was the news yesterday that president obama has instructed the census bureau to include same sex married couples in the 2010 census. >> does this signing of this memo buy the administration more time to work on the appeal of the defensive marriage act and also the repeal of don't ask, don't tell? >> well, we don't have that much choice as we have to move ahead. we have to work with this president. and that means from both the inside and the outside. the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs is an

old friend, mark agrast, a long-time gay activist and former legislative aid on capitol hill, a first rate person. we have some very fine people within the administration. we have advocates outside the administration, we have to work on capitol hill, we have to call our representatives and senators. we have to do all of the things that as barney frank often points out, that the nra relent lsly does. they don't just make a certain effort. they continually press on all fronts. that what we have to do. i understand the venting of some people on the blogs with frustration. but it only has been about 150 days, and we have to help the president by applying the appropriate constructive pressure and that's what i think is going to be happening. >> when you say constructive pressure, what is it that you're talking about, especially in terms of in a couple of of weeks the congress is going to be going out for

their august recess. they're going to be back in their districts. what kind of constructive pressure can be applied to congress to move forward and to thep president do whatever it is that he wants to do? >> well, one thing that we have to do in districts all over the country, because every member of congress has offices back home. so people don't have to come to wash to make this point, they can write letters, they can send e-mails to their members of congress. they can visit their district offices. we need to demand an implant in the back bone of many of our allies on capitol hill who seem to lose their nerve when ever any controversy is raised about some of these issues. for example, there's an unwillingness on the part of many on the hill to deal with don't ask, don't tell. but we are not asking for the military to set aside standards or to set aside its concern about our military readiness in time of war. that is precisely why the

discharges under that unjust policy need to end, because more than 13,000 dedicated professionals in our armed forces have been forced out since the policy was intuted 15 years ago. it harms our military readiness and it's a disgratesful policy. and for that reason, we need to press action on capitol hill. but the president already has the ability to issue a stop loss order. and so one of the things that i'm sure that the representatives of various gay organizations that are going to be meeting with various white house officials next week are going to be pressing the president to do what he can do. not only issuing a stop loss order to end, but order health and human services to speed up the regulatory processes to end the hiv immigration ban which has been in existence under the law since 1993 since president

clinton signed that into law under a democratic congress. so it's not a partisan matter. we have problems with people on both sides of the aisle. we have allies on both sides of the aisle. we were pleased when president obama the other day upon signing that presidential memorandum indicated that it was not enough. and he turned to congresswoman tammy baldwin and senator joe lieberman who was there along with my colleague, the gay rights hero, he gave the act which will remedy between federal employees with same sex partners and heterosexual employees. there are a number of things such as health insurance that i as an employee of the labor department cannot get for my partner. but of course my partner is a foshe national so we have the whole additional problem of being separated because we are

treated as strangers. so we have a long way to go but we have an ally in the white house and we have to work with him. and it actually helps him to achieve his own agenda when we apply constructive pressure across the board in various ways. and that means more than just having this meet on the mall that some people are calling for where people gather on the west lawn of the capitol and talk to each other while people are out of town. >> talking about the relationship between the gay community and the obama administration. he is a political affairs activist with the gay and lesbian activist alliance. and if you would like to get involved, the numbers are on the screen. >> atlanta, georgia.

go ahead. elaine. caller: hello. yes. i was just calling to comment to say that i really think that president obama is headed in the right direction. and we really need to just get, stay on congress. make sure that they back him in everything that he is doing. i think him signing the memo was a good first step. and if we give him time, everything that needs to be done will get done. guest: thank you. we have found that in my own group here in washington, d.c. that incremental approaches have borne a lot of fruit. and it has been crucial to us in our independent advocacy to give credit where due as well as criticism. and so praise as well as pressure. and so that is what is going to work with this president. he has legislative history of

supporting our community going back to his days in the illinois state house. my colleague from equality illinois reck garcia, who is the leading gay rights lobbyist in springfield in the state house sing it is praises of barack obama. and so we know this is someone who understands our issues and we have to keep working with him. it's only been 150 days. host: lake city, florida. welcome. caller: i'm real interested in this subject. in the early 80's, about the middle of the reagan administration, barry bower, his spiritual adviser testified to congress. it's in c spain's archives because i saw it on c-span. there was a hearing. and a congress person asked gary bower why ronald reagan

kept vetoing the aids money they were putting in the package. and it was really bothering, hiv was just coming along there that nobody knew that much about it. bourd told congress, he said, well i've advised the president that god created the aids epidemic to eliminate the blacks and the queers. those were his exact words. at that particular time i laughed. i didn't know that i had a 16-year-old son that was hiv positive, which died later. and i look back and i say to myself, how foolish was i. if congress would have just let that money be appropriated back in the early 80's, i think aids would be solved today. and you've little pipsqueeks like gary bower running around. and that man ran for president.

you can understand, i hope, how i feel. >> it was a sad time and it was disgraceful how long it took. the government, to act back in the 1980s. my friend andrew sullivan, conservative gay writer who is hims hiv positive and in fact if hhs doesn't change the ban, he himself faces deportation to england as much as he loves this country and wants to liff here and has made it his home for sefrls years. so real lives are affected by these policies. and it has required a lot of people stepping up and speaking out for compassion and responsible policies, a problem doesn't go away because it is ignored or is as treated as it is sort of ghettoized as an issue for one community. we've come a long way since

then. we have leadership, we have i think a bipartisan recognition now of how serious that matter is internationally. president bush was very good on hiv funding for africa, for example. host: if you're trying to get in touch with us via twitter, the address is c-span wj. and geevet this one from captain mergo. do you think employees will start adding their friends to their coverage? how will the government keep fraud at bay? >> it's hard for me to imagine, rob. why somebody would pose as a gay married couple for benefits . first of all, they would have to provide the documentation. secondly, there remains a great deal of discrimination in this country based on sexual orientation. and one has to go through a lot

of trouble, certainly in my case with my partner patrick and is in back in ber understoodi at the moment because his sister in-law is dying of cancer. i've been on the phone with him daily eand it's a very painful time for him. and the notion that we would commits fraud and go through years and years of trouble is really imapplausible. all that we ask is to be judged by the same standards as anyone else. and for an immigration situation with a buy national couple such as ours, there are always investigations, interviews, and nobody is calling for those to be short circuited. we're simply calling for equal protection of the law. guest: back to the phones, maryland.

caller: hi, rick. it's phil marty. guest: good to hear from you. caller: i confess to being a little impatient, not with the president but with congress. and has there been a repeal of dome introduce ds? guest: i believe it was snard reid the other day who said it wasn't going to be introduced in the senate or he didn't have -- i'm afraid it's been an insane week. i'm trying to think if that was the domea repeal or -- don't ask, don't tell. i believe that's what senator reid was -- and then he was suggesting that part of it could be done administratively. we have to press on that. i'm not sure what the status is. i believe something has been

introduced in the house. but we have -- we really do have to press. i mean, barney frank i think has a legislate point not in getting the president off the hook but in saying don't complain if you haven't called your members of congress. he said that 16 years ago before the march in washington in 1993, that people can spend a lot of money on coming to washington to have a rally but they couldn't spend the cost of a first class postage to send a letter to their member of congress. and we really do have a lot of work to do to implant a back bone on the part of many of our supposed to allies on the little. >> there was a letter of criticism sent by the human rights president to the obama administration for their backing recently of the defensive marriage act. and the response from the administration was written up in the "wall street journal." says the justice department spokeswoman said in the statement that the department was following routine in the

filing and wasn't making a policy statement. "as it generally does with existing statutes, the justice department is defending the law on the books in court. until congress paffs legislation repeeling the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system" guest: rob, that is true as far as it goes. the president did take an oath of office to uphold the laws of the country and that is his job. and until the law is changed he has to enfor force the current law. however, there are still questions as to why particularly insulting and stupid arguments had to be included in that brief. for example, the argument na, well, as a gay person, you aren't being discriminated against because you can marry a woman. that essentially denies our sexual orientation altogether. it is very comparable to the

argument that was made 40 and 50 years ago to interracial couples. well, the laws are not discriminatory because you can still marry a woman. and in fact, in our case it's even worse than that because it prevents us from marrying anybody that we love. it's an across the board probigs against our marrying somebody we love. and it's hard to believe that anyone would want to have us unhappy marriage, encourage gay men to marry heterosexual women. what do they have against these women, i don't know. host: next up, michigan. kathy, you're on with rick. go ahead. caller: good morning, rick. how are you? i have a couple things to say. number one, i do commend president obama for doing what he is doing. although i feel disappointed as well because i feel it's only

gone halfway to ensure gay and lesbian couples. the other side i want to maybe give you hope and support in some small way, i'm a 53 -year-old female who has seen many things in the last 50 years. i do have children. and one of the things that i have committed to in raising children, which is where i believe true change is going to happen, is to accept people and treat people based on how they are treated. and not to judge people simply because of their sexual orientation or their color. everybody in life has a story. and the way we learn and we grow and we truly become good

human beings is to embrace everyone that we cannd and to learn from them. i realize that's probably a little, i don't know what the good terminology is, blazze or maybe a real undercover type of teaching. but i do believe that's where it is. and i'm very proud to say that i have children that go to school, i have a daughter that's 17 years old and she has gay friends. and i see how their relationship is as compared to back when i was in high school. and if we knew someone was gay and how they were treated. and it's 100% different. guest: well, thank you. i'm the same age as you, as a matter of fact, and i've seen a lot of changes in my 53 years. and we have come a long way.

and many of us have had the feeling in the past several months that we have past an historic turning point in our country in the drive for same sex marriage, for example, for marriage equafplt it's not that our battles are over. but there is a sense at this point that the ultimate outcome is no longer in serious doubt because increasing numbers of americans, and you can find some very interesting polling anliffssiss, increasing numbers of people and it's partly a generational change, embrace simple equality, simple respect for gay and lesbian americans. and that helped, that generational shift helped barack obama get elected and he's very well aware of that. host: chicago, illinois. for independents. caller: i just wanted to comment on a few things.

first of all, i don't think barack obama is an ally of the lgbt community at all. i think that we need to stop being advocates for both of these major parties and come out and start advocating for the third parties, the libertarian party and the green party. i think that just from, like saying things like you know that these people are allies like barack obama. the guy is purely for banking interest and lobbying interests. he is not our ally. he didn't stand up and speak against the defensive marriage act after the department of justice called us in the lgbt community peedo fillaction. and things of that nature. and i'm tired of that. and i don't think that guy is an ally of ours.

host: who in the political realm do you feel speaks for you and your community? caller: both dennis cuse niche and ron paul. but they never have a huge voice. but also, in a third party, mckinny and the green party. and michael bat anywheric of the libertarian party. guest: that's a recipe for disenfranchise. sintsdza mckinny right after 9/11 was peddling conconspiracyy theories accusing our own government of being behind the nine letch attacks. and those two candidates that he mentioned were like in last place. given the 98% or so of reelection rate of incumbents in the senate, for example, to completely run off both major parties is a recipe for just selft erashor politically.

i think it's very irresponsible for advocates for lgbt or any other advocates to demand perfection. no political franchise is perfect. the department of justice brief in the doma case did not exactly call us ped filse. there was a reference to various other things. i think the argument was if we have to allow this, we have to allow other things, which is completely ill logical, because making one change does not mean you have to change everything. you advocate for change a and you only make change a. they have some explaining to do to us. but obama has a proven pro-gay voting record in the u.s. senate and illinois senate. that is a fact. that is not rhetoric. that is not spin. that is the case. and i understand in politics the question is, what have you done for me lately? but somebody's past record is a good measure of what they're going to do in 2 future.

and i am a reality-based activist. and supporting the furtherest fringe candidate is not my idea of advancing. host: if you want to find out more about the organization, you can go to their website glaa.org. as we show you, we will take another call. carl on our line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. i just wanted to say, rick, i commend you guys for standing up what you believe in. i just have an issue with your comparison when it comes to gay rights and civil rights. i think there's a big difference. one, you make a choice. the other one, you know, there was a situation where you were placed in slavery because of the color of your skin. if you were gay and you were white, you were not a slave. so i think when you use the

comparisons of civil rights and gay rights, i think there is a big difference there, because like i said, i commend you guys for standing up, but i think your comparisons shouldn't be put where there is a situation, where there is a color and comparative choice. i hear that often, and i think that folks should have the right to live their life that they want to live as long as they're not hurting anybody else. but i think we should make honest and true comparisons when it comes to situations like gay rights and civil rights. caller: well, i appreciate that underlying support that i hear you expressing. i don't make a broad based complete equation of the two. different struggles are different. and certainly the history of the middle passage and the centuries that followed, the brutality and horror that were vizzitied on the chish of africa in this country is pretty much unparalleled other than the treatment of native

americans but we are talking about the bottom line at present is equal protection under the law that all americans are entitled to. and of course there are many gay people who are themselves african americans. so there is not one group over here which is frinch american and another group over here that's gay. we have our community covers every other demographic that there is. and so, yes, there are differences and different struggles. but the bottom line is we are all citizens of this country and we are all entitled to equal protection under the 14th amendment. host: what can you tell us about the story of major margaret whit and how the position might affect her future in and out of the air force? guest: her case and the case of dan choy who was recently discharged and another openly gay service member who is forcibly discharged and now

running for u.s. congress from california very impressive. these are all very impressive people. highly skilled, highly dedicated, highly motivated, who have not caused moral or discipline problems in their unit at all. many in many cases these people are their superior officers beg for them to be retained. and that's why we feel that president obama should issue a stop loss order because thaved stop loss orders during the wars to prevent and in fact the discharges did go down. during the very time that you would think that the presence of a guy soldier was a problem you would not want him there in the heat of battle, yet that is too time when the discharges have gone down. so the entire rationale against allowing openly gay people in the military is fab cate. the claims are simply not true. and i think the there's a book

by a guy named nathaniel frankle unfriendly fire which goes into the evidence on this. and general shalli cash fill ay in an op ed yesterday reiterated this, that he said it's good for the president to consult with top military leaders to discuss how to move ahead with this repeal of don't ask, don't tell. but that it does have to move ahead. and we have to press congress for the sake of our militaries readiness and for the sake of our country's defense, we can't afford to lose more than 13,000 service members, which we have lost in the past 15 years. simply because of this -- i forget what the expression is, where the he cannlers veto is the term. where somebody doesn't like something and you let him skew

the entire discussion and you basically give big ots a veto. the evidence is that there is no problem in units that have openly gay members. and their records speak for themselves. they should be judged on their merits. which is all that anybody of us is asking for. host: we have another message from twitter. we need your voice out there. let's take another call. caller: thank you for c-span. i'm highly disappointed in the obama administration in so many areas. it's luke warm at best, expends no health care benefits at all to partners of gay marriage. guest: that's why he called, because there is only so much he can do short of legislation.

have you called your member of congress and written urging them to repeal don't ask don't tell and pass hate crimes law? we've dropped that phone call. you mentioned a meeting coming up next week at the white house. tell us a little bit more about that meeting, how that advances the issue. guest: well, gay advocates in washington had various national organizations had called for a meeting to discuss their concerns. and initially we were sort of gin a run around. but i heard yesterday that they had been invited to a meeting at the white house to discuss these concerns. and that's all i know. i was not one of those invited. i'm just a local activist, a group that focuses on equality under the law here in washington, d.c. and of course in d.c., we have a special relationship with the u.s. congress. all of the laws that we pass in d.c. have to go to the hill for congressional review period. and congress has to approve our

annual appropriations bill. so we're in a special case. but our national advocates will be meeting in the white house and i expect all of these things we've been discussing will be on the agenda. >> do you know if the president is going to be at this meeting? >> i don't know that. i know he has often popped in when people are having these kinds of meetings to greet the people and indicate that he is following these things very closely. he does have a lot on his plate as i'm sitting here with you rob the world is watching for signs of what's happening in iran and this is a president, by the way, and one of the things i admire about this president first of all he's one of the smartest men who has ever held the job. and when he talks to people like they're adults, including when he went to cairo and his speech to the muslim population of the world. he said that he had had experience of islam on three continents before traveling to the region where it was revealed. and sg