President applauds Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage
AS United States (U.S.) President Barack Obama Wednesday embarked on his three nations’ tour of Africa, questions persisted from the American media and civil society on the exclusion of Nigeria from the trip.
Obama, who was joined by his wife, Michelle and other White House officials and family members, including his two daughters, boarded Air Force One around 9a.m. yesterday morning and left for Senegal – the first stop of the trip.
However, Obama has commended the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman – a major victory for gay couples.
“I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defence of Marriage Act,” Obama said shortly after the announcement of the 5-4 decision ending the 1996 law.
“This was discrimination enshrined in law. It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it.”
The striking down of DOMA will allow married gay couples to enjoy the same federal benefits as straight married couples, including with regard to inheritance and hospital visits.
Obama said he had ordered officials to “ensure this decision, including its implications for federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly.”
In addition to striking down the federal law, the Supreme Court threw out an appeal of a ruling against Proposition 8, a California state ban on gay marriage, paving the way for same-sex marriage in the western state.
In a bid to reassure opponents of same-sex marriage, Obama said the rulings would have no effect on how religious institutions define marriage.
Obama, the first U.S. president to come out in support of same-sex marriage, cast the decision as a landmark step in the U.S. struggle for equal rights.
But in the last one week during pre-tour conference calls hosted by the White House, the constant top question asked by either journalists or civil society centered on Nigeria’s exclusion.
First, the White House held a Conference Call for reporters last week Friday where the travel plans of President Obama were detailed and the objectives of the trip explained by three White House officials, namely Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Senior Director for African Affairs Grant Harris and Senior Director for Development and Democracy Gayle Smith.
At that media briefing, it did not take too long before a reporter from Bloomberg asked the question on why Nigeria was left out.
Again on Tuesday afternoon at another White House Conference Call addressed by the same set of White House officials, but this time not for the press but for NGOs and the civil society, a participant from Howard University, spoke up again, demanding an explanation from White House why Nigeria was left out of the trip.
Besides the U.S. media and NGOs questioning the exclusion of Nigeria, such groups like the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, CANAN and also the Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S., Prof. Ade Adefuye, have also questioned what many see as an obvious isolation of Nigeria during this second trip by President Obama to Africa.
The argument behind the questions raised by both the U.S. media and civil society is based on Nigeria’s strategic role in the continent and what the Obama government itself has always said about the importance of Nigeria to its African policy.
For instance, the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said last year at a meeting with Vice President Namadi Sambo in the U.S. capital that Nigeria was America’s anchor in Africa.
But in replying to the questions and criticism, White House Deputy National Security Adviser, Rhodes, hinted at the security situation in the country as being responsible.
Rhodes told the media that “obviously, Nigeria is working through some very challenging security issues right now.”
Although he added that the U.S. certainly believes “that Nigeria is a fundamentally important country to the future of Africa. We’ve put a lot of investment in the relationship with Nigeria through their leadership of ECOWAS, through the significant U.S. business investment in Nigeria and through our security cooperation.
According to him, the U.S. certainly believes there will be a future “opportunity to further engage the Nigerian government through bilateral meetings going forward. But at this point, we just were not able to make it to Nigeria on this particular itinerary.”
During Tuesday’s conference call with the civil society and NGOs, the White House officials made the same explanation, focusing even more on the security situation in Nigeria as the major obstacle, according to NGO participants that were on the conference call.
Meanwhile, Adefuye has asked for a distinct visit by President Obama to Nigeria before the end of the second term in 2016.
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