The audacity of evolution on same-sex marriage
This analysis originally appeared on Slate.
This is a landmark civil rights moment that happened awfully fast. It was both an act of conviction and political expediency--what measure of each we may never know. What we do know is that this was the president's private position. What's less well known is the thinking behind the timing of the announcement. White House and campaign officials have been talking about it for months. According to several sources involved in the campaign, the president was going to make his announcement soon, before the convention (and maybe even very soon) if for no other reason than to avoid a fight over the party platform and to rally gay supporters. Biden stepped on his plan, making it look like the president was backing into a decision and controlled by events.
This looks like another instance of the vice president stumbling his way into the history books. But Barack Obama's untenable position is every bit as culpable for the firestorm and rushed decision. The president was for gay marriage in private but wouldn't say so in public. He told the Justice Department to inform the courts that it believed the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and should be struck down. He said he was "evolving" which made it clear that it was a matter of time before he came to the enlightened position of supporting same-sex marriage (or simply announced a long-held private view that had been constrained by politics). It has been a long evolution for the president. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, he wrote that he was "open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided."
The administration policy on marriage equality was a jerky spasm of winks and nods. It was the domestic equivalent of the "One China Policy," the strategic ambiguity that allows the United States to support Taiwan but not support its bid for independence, which angers China. It's policy by omission, not commission. It's not a policy that makes sense entirely, but it's a nonpolicy that everyone has agreed to simply treat like it makes sense. (The agreement that Starbucks makes good coffee is the consumer product equivalent.)
The White House at first tried to pretend there was nothing new about Biden's remarks. Campaign and administration aides said that he was being totally consistent with the president's view. This wasn't exactly true, but under the agreement to keep everything in limbo it might have held. This was a good storyline to get out if the president really was planning a coming announcement. Only if Biden didn't appear to be getting out ahead of the president could the president take the leading position.
The problem, say Democrats, is that the Biden comments poked an existing bruise among the president's supporters in the gay community. The rush to bowdlerize what Biden had said turned a glancing tap of the bruise into a grinding fist.
A source who raises money for Democrats says that Obama has mostly maxed out with donations from the gay political community, but that his Super PAC and other nonaffiliated support groups still need massive high-dollar donations. A lot of potential donors are influential members of the gay community who follow the same-sex marriage issue closely and who were likely to be most offended by the president holding on to his same, "evolving" stance. How could an Obama bundler--one of those financial backers who raises huge sums from their circle of friends--who had been convincing those same friends that the president was with them, continue to make calls with this fresh slap in the face. Says the Democratic fundraiser: "Once this became a litmus test if you're a gay bundler, after 100 hours saying 'the president is going to do the right thing' now you're calling saying 'sorry this happened, but I can't raise another dollar unless you do the right thing.' "
As a matter of narrative continuity, it was probably also a wise political move for the president to take a stand. The Obama campaign has consistently claimed that his opponent lacks a moral core; he shades and capers and doesn't tell you what he believes in his heart. This was all true of the president's position on gay marriage. It's good for him to be free of that wrinkle, though narrative continuity (running a campaign that makes sense) probably has a limited affect on voters and their final choices.
What was less clear was whether the president was exercising logical continuity. Based on the limited transcripts of the interview, the president said he supported same-sex marriage but didn't think it was a right. He said the states could continue to handle the issue as they saw fit. Forty-four states right now do not allow it. Under this same line of thinking, in 1967 he would have supported the right for interracial couples to marry but would have thought Virginia had a right not to allow it.
Shortly after Obama's comments, Mitt Romney reasserted his opposition to same-sex marriage and took the opportunity to point out that he had never wavered in that stance. Republican organizer Ralph Reed said the president's "flip-flop" on gay marriage would doom him. It's certain the president just helped Mitt Romney consolidate his base. How it will play in the wider electorate is less clear. The latest Pew Research Center survey found that Americans back same-sex marriage 47 to 43. The decision will turn off working class voters but perhaps energize younger voters and college educated suburban voters.
The political machinations of the moment were fascinating--what will this mean to Hispanics in North Carolina?--but this election is not going to turn on same-sex marriage. Romney wants to keep focused on the economy. The president wants to divert from certain conversations about the economy but not to this issue.
A lot of people have been comparing this election to the 2004 race. Today, they get another data point. During that election, President Bush called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. According to White House sources at the time, it was an effort to stir the conservative GOP base in what the president and his team knew would be a close election. Obama's support for gay marriage may not have been aimed at getting the base excited as much as keeping some of its influential members from being angry. That anger would have been far more muted had it not been for Joe Biden. The president could blame his No. 2, but since Biden led to the culmination of Obama's evolutionary journey and put him on the right side of history, perhaps the president should thank him.
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You know what I hate? *I* hate being stereotyped. I hate being hated by people based on what I believe or who I vote for and how I come to that decision. I hate being called a hater by people who hate me. And *I'm* the hypocrite? Here's what I am: I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian who believes in the Word of God (and I'm wise enough to know which parts of the Bible are based on the culture of the day and which parts apply to me now). I'm a Bible-believing Christian who believes that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He was killed in order to save EVERYONE who believes in Him - even homosexuals. I also believe the parts of the Bible that say that homosexuality is wrong. So I'll vote my convictions. I'll always vote based on my Christian faith. If it came down to it, even if it conflicts with the Constitution (I'm not saying it does in this case. I'm just addressing that issue). My faith "trumps" the Constitution if it has to. Thank God that I live in a country where I can say that. I'm proud of our Constitution and I'm proud to be an American. And I'm glad that it allows me vote based on my convictions.
So what are you thinking now? Do you hate *ME* or do you hate *MY OPINION*? Who are the haters now? Who are the bigots now?
When it comes to online debates like this, you know what I REALLY REALLY hate? Trolls. You know who you are. Posting a LOT and always stirring the pot. Trolls ATTACK people. I'd say a former military man and some "slow" dude have too much time on their hands. I wish I could help vote in a law against trolling. Oh wait, I think "online bullying" might fit. We all need protection from bullying - no matter what you believe. I think they are working on a law addressing that. Thank God!
Romney has said he is for gay "couples" adopting children. If the "couples" are not legal partners, what does Romney want to happen to those children in a probate situation absent a will?
The institution of marriage already existed before the Constitution The Constitution does not have any mention of the right to marriage.
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It doesn't mention any number of rights specifically.
It does, however, mandate "equal protection under the law" which is where your discriminating laws face their demise.
This move is a political ploy by the Obama regime to get money and votes. I think this may backfire on Obama.
"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."
Leviticus 25:44
"Both your male and female slaves, whom you shall have, shall be of the nations that are round about you; of them shall you buy male and female slaves."
Good to know our understanding of the bible NEVER EVOLVES and is without error. (sarc)
same sex marriages cannot procreate, that alone should keep them from being allowed to marry.
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You are a bigot who hasn't the gonads to admit as much, so you throw up a ridiculous justification for your bigoted position rather than admit the obvious truth.
You claim the discrimination is justified because gays can not procreate, yet you make no call to prohibit the elderly from marrying even though they can not procreate do you?
You make no call for prohibiting infertile people for marrying either, do you?
Just gays......
Even though you try to obfuscate your bigotry with cockamamey justifiactions, it's as plain as day.
What about infertile couples, people who choose not to have children or the elderly? Should they not be allowed to marry as well as per your reasoning?