From WaPo, a background article on the Obama administration’s quiescent approach to gay rights issues:
Soon after Obama’s election, staffers from the Human Rights Campaign presented the transition team with a list of 70 actions the president could take without congressional approval.
[...]
Over the next several months, the administration quietly began acting on the recommendations: The State Department started issuing embassy ID cards to same-sex partners of diplomats; Housing and Urban Development ended discrimination in housing assistance programs; HHS pledged to change its policies regarding HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.
Rather than pick a high-profile fight on a very divisive issue, the president prefers to accumulate small victories that change the political space. Rather than issue orders on DADT, the president prefers to make the Pentagon do the work so that conservative congresscritters argue with generals instead of having generals argue with him. Meanwhile, the rest of the agenda moves forward.
