The Top Story: LGBT groups and Obama drift apart

LGBT groups have been growing increasingly frustrated with how President Obama has handled his campaign promises to them. That frustration peaked when the Department of Justice defended the Defense of Marriage Act with language that came too close to homophobic arguments against gay marriage for many, leading to prominent withdrawals from a gay fundraiser. In a move that was characterized as an olive branch to his frustrated gay supporters, Obama signed a presidential memo yesterday granting some rights to the partners of Federal employees.

Overall, this was a complicated story and easily misunderstood, especially for those who haven't paid attention to the small steps that got us here. So yesterday I filled the DVR with news shows to get an idea of how the story was being handled. I'm not surprised that a lot of the TV news ignored the story, but there were a few noteworthy moments.

The Ed Show

Honestly, I've felt pretty mixed about Ed Schultz's new show. His working class liberal perspective should be a solid addition to the MSNBC lineup, but that point of view disappears when he talks with a guest. Shultz discussed the issue with Mike Rogers of BlogActive and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council separately and while he asked some interesting questions to Rogers (like asking what alternatives gays had at the ballot box), he didn't challenge Perkins' attempt to present a kinder face to his anti-gay views. Perkins tried to frame the issue as being unfair to unmarried straight couples and I would have liked to see Perkins, at least, reconcile that argument with how impulsive straight couples who've just met are able to get rights denied to gay couples who have been together for years.

Fox News

Okay, I watched Fox News so you don't have to... or, at least, I skimmed as much of Fox News as I could take in order to try to figure out how they were covering this story. (Does Glenn Beck always yell when he's reading viewer e-mails?) Good news everybody, they mostly ignored the issue, which means I was spared any gleeful coverage of internal discord among Obama's supporters that I was expecting. So cheers to Fox ignoring a story that, based on its history, it probably would have mishandled.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann opened his show with some harsh criticism of all the shortcomings of Obama's presidential memo, naming the rights not being extended to employees and the fact that gay military members wouldn't dare to try to enjoy these benefits. The HRC's Joe Solomonese provided the moderating voice to Olbermann's irate Mr. Darcy. Keith then took a calmer tone when discussing the politics with Richard Wolffe, who nicely presented the complexities of the issue. I liked Wolffe's point that this very well might not be about the fundraiser but the protest pulling on the administration's conscious.

Anderson Cooper 360

You've already seen the clip, but I wanted to comment on how much I like the way Dustin Lance Black reframed the issue as not a political football but as a human issue. He certainly learned from the life of Harvey Milk about focusing on the people affected by these policies. By talking how the message of these policies tell LGBT people that they're deserving of less than other people, he undermines the idea that this story is merely a matter of keeping a "special interest group" satisfied.

MSNBC

I was easily most impressed by MSNBC's daytime coverage of the story. MSNBC sometimes frustrates me for its inflexibility and abuse of the "breaking news" banner, but yesterday the network gave gays solid coverage. Though the day a wide variety of gay advocates were given a chance to articulate the issue -- including Lambda Legal's Leslie Gabel-Bret, Mike Rogers and Lara Schwartz of the HRC -- which managed to convey the internal debate among gay rights groups. The best coverage probably came at a roundtable discussion between the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart, Michelangelo Signorile (who managed to create a "Oh no he didn't moment" when he called Rahm Emmanuel a "dinosaur" on gay issues) and Katrina vanden Heuvel. It was a refreshing change to not to see the panel's two gays "balanced" by an anti-gay advocate and the debate focused on the conflicted feelings felt within the gay community, instead of discussing if gays deserved any rights. Here's Mike Rogers' appearance from earlier in the day.

Those were my noteworthy moments, but for all the news shows I watched, there was plenty I missed. Was there other noteworthy coverage?