Obama voices his support for gay marriage

JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — On the fence no longer, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama declared his unequiv­o­cal sup­port for gay mar­riage on Wednes­day, a his­toric announce­ment that gave the polar­iz­ing social issue a more promi­nent role in the 2012 race for the White House.

The announce­ment was the first by a sit­ting pres­i­dent, and Repub­li­can chal­lenger Mitt Rom­ney swiftly dis­agreed with it. “I believe that mar­riage is between a man and a woman,” he said while cam­paign­ing in Oklahoma.

Gay rights advo­cates cheered Obama’s dec­la­ra­tion, which they had long urged him to make. Beyond the words, one man who mar­ried his gay part­ner in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., was stirred to send a $25 con­tri­bu­tion to the president’s cam­paign. “Mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion is the best way to say thank you,” said Stu­art Kopperman.

Obama revealed his deci­sion after a series of events that made clear the polit­i­cal ground was shift­ing. He once opposed gay mar­riage but more recently had said his views were “evolving.”

In an inter­view with ABC in which he blended the per­sonal and the pres­i­den­tial, Obama said “it wouldn’t dawn” on his daugh­ters, Sasha and Malia, that some of their friends’ par­ents would be treated dif­fer­ently than oth­ers. He said he also thought of aides “who are in incred­i­bly com­mit­ted monog­a­mous same-sex rela­tion­ships who are rais­ing kids together.”

Obama added that he thought about “those sol­diers or air­men or Marines or sailors who are out there fight­ing on my behalf, and yet feel con­strained even though now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone because they’re not able to com­mit them­selves in a marriage.”

The pres­i­dent said he was tak­ing a per­sonal posi­tion. Aides said the president’s shift would have no impact on cur­rent poli­cies and he con­tin­ues to believe that mar­riage is an issue best decided by states.

“I have hes­i­tated on gay mar­riage in part because I thought that civil unions would be suf­fi­cient,” Obama said in the inter­view. He added, “I was sen­si­tive to the fact that for a lot of peo­ple the word ‘mar­riage’ was some­thing that evokes very pow­er­ful tra­di­tions, reli­gious beliefs and so forth.”

Now, he said, “it is impor­tant for me per­son­ally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex cou­ples should be able to get married.”

He spoke on the heels of a pair of events that under­scored the sen­si­tiv­ity of an issue that has long divided the nation.

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said in an inter­view on Sun­day that he is com­pletely com­fort­able with gays mar­ry­ing, a pro­nounce­ment that instantly raised the pro­file of the issue. White House aides insisted the vice pres­i­dent hadn’t said any­thing par­tic­u­larly news­wor­thy, but gay rights groups cited Biden’s com­ments in urg­ing the pres­i­dent to announce his support.

On Tues­day, vot­ers in North Car­olina — a poten­tial bat­tle­ground in the fall elec­tion — approved an amend­ment to the state con­sti­tu­tion affirm­ing that mar­riage may only be a union of a man and a woman.

Addi­tion­ally, sev­eral of the president’s biggest finan­cial back­ers are gay, and some have prod­ded him pub­licly to declare his sup­port for same-sex marriage.

Senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials said Obama came to the con­clu­sion that gay cou­ples should have the right to legally marry ear­lier this year and had planned to make his views known pub­licly before the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion in early Sep­tem­ber. They con­ceded that Biden’s com­ments accel­er­ated the time­line, but said the vice president’s remarks were impromptu and not part of a coor­di­nated effort to soften the ground for a shift by the pres­i­dent. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity to dis­cuss inter­nal White House deliberations.

As recently as eight years ago, con­ser­v­a­tives in sev­eral states maneu­vered suc­cess­fully to place ques­tions relat­ing to gay mar­riage on the elec­tion day bal­lot as a way of boost­ing turnout for Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s re-election.

Now, nation­wide polling sug­gests increas­ing accep­tance of gay mar­riage. In a national sur­vey released ear­lier this month, Gallup reported 50 per­cent of those polled said it should be legal, and 48 per­cent were opposed. Democ­rats favored by a mar­gin of roughly 2–1, while Repub­li­cans opposed it by an even big­ger mar­gin. Among inde­pen­dents, 57 per­cent expressed sup­port, and 40 per­cent were opposed.

What­ever the polls, the polit­i­cal cross­cur­rents are tricky, and admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials con­ceded as much.

Some top aides argued that gay mar­riage is toxic at the bal­lot box in com­pet­i­tive states like North Car­olina and said the vote there this week shows that oppo­si­tion to the issue is a ral­ly­ing point for Republicans.

Shift­ing his empha­sis, even briefly, could open Obama up to Repub­li­can crit­i­cism that he is tak­ing his eye off the econ­omy, vot­ers’ No. 1 issue.

Yet some promi­nent gay donors have said pub­licly they wanted Obama to announce his sup­port for gay mar­riage. Other Demo­c­ra­tic sup­port­ers claim Obama’s deci­sion could ener­gize huge swaths of the party, includ­ing young peo­ple. He also could appeal to inde­pen­dent voters.

By day’s end Wednes­day, the Obama cam­paign had emailed a clip of the inter­view and a per­sonal state­ment from the pres­i­dent to its vast list of sup­port­ers, draw­ing atten­tion to his stance.

The deci­sion also cre­ates an area of clear con­trast between Obama and his Repub­li­can rival as he argues that he’s deliv­ered on the change he promised four years ago.

Obama said he some­times talks with col­lege Repub­li­cans on his vis­its to cam­puses, and while they oppose his poli­cies on the econ­omy and for­eign pol­icy, “when it comes to same sex equal­ity, or, you know, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion, that they believe in equal­ity. They are more com­fort­able with it.”

Mag­gie Gal­lagher, co-founder of the National Orga­ni­za­tion for Mar­riage and a lead­ing sup­porter of the con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment approved in North Car­olina on Tues­day, said she wel­comed Obama’s announce­ment at the same time she dis­agreed with it.

“Polit­i­cally, we wel­come this,” she said. “We think it’s a huge mis­take. Pres­i­dent Obama is choos­ing the money over the vot­ers the day after 61 per­cent of North Car­olini­ans in a key swing state demon­strated they oppose gay marriage.”

House Demo­c­ra­tic leader Nancy Pelosi instantly sought polit­i­cal gain from the president’s announce­ment. The Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gres­sional Cam­paign Com­mit­tee issued an email in her name that asked recip­i­ents to “stand with Pres­i­dent Obama.” Such requests are often fol­lowed by a solic­i­ta­tion for cam­paign donations.

Obama said first lady Michelle Obama also was involved in his deci­sion and joins him in sup­port­ing gay marriage.

“In the end, the val­ues that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other peo­ple,” he said.

Acknowl­edg­ing that his sup­port for same-sex mar­riage may ran­kle reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tives, Obama said he thinks about his faith in part through the prism of the Golden Rule — treat­ing oth­ers the way you would want to be treated.

“That’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what moti­vates me as pres­i­dent and I fig­ure the most con­sis­tent I can be in being true to those pre­cepts, the bet­ter I’ll be as a dad and a hus­band and hope­fully the bet­ter I’ll be as pres­i­dent,” Obama said.

Six states — all in the North­east except Iowa — and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia allow same-sex mar­riages. In addi­tion, two other states have laws that are not yet in effect and may be sub­ject to referendums.

Posted by AP News on May 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.