Democrats still ducking on guns and gays

By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / April 18, 2009

THREE YEARS AGO, then-House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told the Trotter Group of African-American columnists that the Republicans won the White House in 2000 and 2004 because of "gays, guns, and God - abortion, gay marriage, and guns - and they've had success with that with people whose personal interests are being served by voting Democratic . . . they've not heard a Democratic economic message that addresses their needs. They haven't heard anything with the clarity that they need."

Pelosi is now House speaker. Her party runs the White House and the Senate. The Democrats have made only one thing clear: They still duck and cover on gays and guns.

As a candidate, Barack Obama wrote in 2007 that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay and lesbian soldiers should be repealed because "It's time to turn the page on the bitterness and bigotry." But on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said don't ask the administration to turn the page too soon.

Saying only that military leaders "have begun a dialogue" with Obama, Gates said, "If the law changes, so will our policies."

This begs the question of who is the chicken, who is the egg, and is it all a ruse to chicken out?
Last September, as Obama closed in on the White House, he began to punt to the military, saying, "Although I have consistently said I would repeal 'don't ask, don't tell,' I believe the way to do it is to make sure that we are working through a process, getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be."

And just how long will the process be?

Gates said, "From the time President Truman signed the executive order for integration in 1948, it was five years before that process was completed. I'm not saying that's a model for this, but . . . this is something that needs to be done very, very carefully."

Five years? This is despite 81 percent of Americans in a December CNN poll saying that openly gay or lesbian citizens should be allowed to serve. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairmen Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili said "don't ask, don't tell" should be reversed or reconsidered.

Then there's the roll-over by the Democrats on guns. Also on Thursday, Obama traveled to Mexico to pledge his help against the flow of US guns into the Mexican drug wars that have left 10,000 people dead in the last two years. But Obama rendered his pledge hollow by saying that any urgent actions he will take do not include his campaign promise to reinstate the lapsed assault weapons ban.

Even if Obama wanted to reinstate the ban, too few key Democrats have his back. Senate majority leader Harry Reid opposes the ban, and when Attorney General Eric Holder supported the reinstatement in February, Pelosi clucked like a wind-up National Rifle Association doll, "Let's start out enforcing the laws we have now."

Which, of course, is effectively no gun laws at all.

In a hysteria over an Obama presidency, gun buyers are on an unprecedented binge. A key indicator of gun purchases are federal criminal background checks. Based on the last six months, the United States will have 16 million checks in 2009, obliterating the 2008 record of 12.7 million checks. State-by-state laws do not even qualify as patchwork, and private gun shows and expos are barely regulated, from Southwest border states to here in Massachusetts, where an 8-year-old boy accidentally killed himself last fall with a Micro Uzi at a gun-club pumpkin shoot in Westfield.

Obama and the Democrats have less to fear than they think as America's gun culture is in overall decline. The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center says the percentage of Americans who claim a gun in the home has declined from 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006.

Pelosi once said "gays, guns, and God" worked for the Republicans in the "absence of a strong Democratic message."

Now in charge of Capitol Hill, the Democrats are still absent.