By Cliff Dunn

“The modern president is America’s shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He’s also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.”
Gene Healy, “The Cult of the Presidency”

President Obama’s historic words last week announcing his support of full marriage equality for gay Americans was as simple as it was foundational: “I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” The full scope and impact of this fairly straightforward executive opinion have yet to be measured, but I have serious reason to think it will be somewhat similar to the society-shaking influence of—with apologies to the intolerant extreme of the religious right—Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery (I purposely chose that one, but it could easily have been any one of the Ten Greatest Hits).

With Obama’s offhand comment—spoken to an interviewer as one might say to a child “It’s wrong to lie”— he weaved presidential magic into the complex legerdemain of the gay partnerships in modern America. The Presidential Seal “of approval” (pun intended) brings with it the force and impact of a body blow, megaton-style, with an aura that encompasses all the majesty and dignity of the Republic within a single man. No king for us, insisted Washington and the other dead (and mostly straight, I’m guessing—but who knows?) white males who framed the Great Experiment in their own images, imperfect and cantankerous demigods though they may have been.

Instead of a monarch for the new nation, executive function and power were endowed in a presidency (such a magnitude of power, in fact, that political scientists are divided to the present day as to the wisdom of using the American Presidency as a blueprint for modern executive branches of government elsewhere), and that office would, through tumultuous centuries, be secularly anointed with the pomp, pageantry, and potency of a priest-king, celebrity icon, and national dad all rolled into one.

Make no mistake. The office endows a negative-charisma in many, if not most, of its historic occupants (although like all nations, we do love our scoundrels: FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton all possessed a “forgivable” quality that drove their enemies to apoplexy). But even for those Commanders-in-Chief whom We The People have come to hate through the years—Nixon, Bush-43, Hoover, Grant, Buchanan, LBJ, and Truman, at least during his time in office—that hatred was almost invariably accompanied by a recognition that his office commanded a mystique and awe that even the most blowhard opposition politician has crumbled under in even the briefest visit to the Oval Office.

Obama’s isn’t merely the opinion of a talking head. Neither Rush Limbaugh, nor Howard Stern, nor Sean Hannity can command the grandeur, gravitas, might, majesty, and moral high ground—to say nothing of the 82nd Airborne Division—that emanates from the presidency. Obama was conjuring the shades of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (both of them), Truman, and Reagan when he placed the moral authority of his office squarely on the side of equality and justice for every American. In doing so, he potentially jeopardized his electoral relationship with his African American constituency (although I’m betting otherwise). No other prominent American leader could take such a calculated risk.

You talk about only Nixon being qualified to go to China.

Why should this be such a cause for sleepless nights among the enemies of equality? Consider. When the chief executive says “I think” this or that, he may indeed be voicing the opinion of a private citizen. On the other hand, when the Queen of England says “We are not amused,” she is speaking AS “we”—the entire United Kingdom, even those among her subjects who think she should be replaced by a Word Document containing a legible constitution. Which one, though, do you think gets their morning paper delivered faster?

Lincoln’s 1860s opposition to southern secession was admired, but considered mostly window dressing, since there was no constitutional framework for a president telling rebellious states that they couldn’t abscond from the Union (to say nothing of suspending habeas corpus, which still gives constitutional constructionists the shakes). FDR’s “welfare state” efforts in the 1930s during the desperate days of the Great Depression were met with hostility and accusations of “socialism” and “tyranny” (sound familiar?), because most Americans feared an activist government. But how many 70-year-old conservative senior citizens today are indignantly refusing their Social Security checks? Truman’s Missouri origins and political machine past made him an unlikely Commander-in-Chief to implement racial integration of the armed services, but “Give ‘em Hell” Harry knew the difference between right and wrong, and he acted accordingly.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton was tagged by some in the media as America’s “first Black president” because of his reputed simpatico with the cause of racial justice, and for his close ties with African American leaders. This week, the cover of Newsweek featured an image of Obama with the well-deserved and hard-won caption “The First Gay President.” Although accusations of an “Imperial Presidency” may be leveled at him by his political enemies, under the circumstances—and certainly to most of his LGBT supporters—only the flexing of the Imperial Presidency’s muscles can deliver liberty and justice for all of us.