Today a young brave college student asked President Obama about DADT and Marriage Equality. It is almost embarrassing watching Obama stumble through his answer.

I think President Obama using the Representative Tammy Baldwin bill providing domestic partner benefits to federal employees as political cover is shameful, and unacceptable. Representive Baldwin and other Members of Congress should not allow that to happen. The LGBT community at-large has never fought for such legislation, we never made it a priority for our movement, but the Administration and various national LGBT organizations have been co-opted to accept this crumb as progress.

President Obama doesn’t say anything about DADT which is troubling since he was asked to name specific steps that he is taking.

President Obama then goes on to say that he is out of time, but spends another 5 minutes wrapping up (which isn’t captured on this video).

The game is changing and  the LGBT community will no longer accept being treated as a pariah from the Democratic President. Either the Democratic Party insiders have no access, are not being listened to, or they are being walked all over.

Here is the transcript thanks to Towelroad.com.

“As I said last night my belief is that a basic principle in our Constitution is that if you’re obeying the law, if you’re following the rules, that you should be treated the same regardless of who you are.

“I think that principle applies to gay and lesbian couples, so at the federal level one of the things that we’re trying to do is to make sure that partnerships are recognized for purposes of benefits, so that hospital visitation for example is something that is permitted, so that social security or pension benefits or others, that same-sex couples are recognized in all those circumstances.

“We actually have an opportunity of passing a law that’s been introduced in Congress right now and my hope is that this year we can get it done just for federal employees and federal workers. A lot of companies on their own, some of the best run companies, have adopted these practices. I think it’s the right thing to do and it makes sense for us to take a leadership role in ensuring that people are treated the same.

“Regardless of your personal opinions the notion that somebody who’s working really hard for 30 years can’t take their death benefits and transfer them to the person that they love most in the world and who has supported them their whole lives doesn’t seem fair, doesn’t seem right and I think it’s the right thing to do.”