You can make that argument, but I’m not sure who is going to believe it. He moved on gays rights issues when he felt it was prudent and workable. I wish those moves had been made earlier and more strongly, but a lot of people are idiots on these issues and they vote, too. He’s been moving toward the right position on these matters (and it’s likely that’s been the position he always held), and he got closer today.
:dubious: Hibernate.
The idea that Obama is some kind of social conservative at heart, and has been having an internal debate about the morality of gay marriage for the past several years, is absurd.
He’s been wrestling with whether it would be politically damaging for him to reveal his true opinions on the issue. That’s all.
It is still different from Romney, who simply seems to calculate what positions would be politically expedient for him to adopt, regardless of his own opinions.
Actually, what he says is that he was always opposed to federal mandates. States, he says, are and were different.
Now that’s a real distinction, so it’s defensible. You can’t prove he’s lying. But a fine one, and one he never made before, so while his fans may buy it, most people not predisposed to believe whatever comes out of his mouth hears it and goes :rolleyes:
In the same way, Obama can defensibly claim that he just changed his mind. You can’t prove he’s lying. But it’s a little bit hard to imagine what specifically happened to change it. Did he make his first gay friend? Did he read some book that changed his mind? What? Unless he comes out and clearly explains the logic behind the switch in a convincing way (and no, “I just thought it over for the first time” is not convincing), most people not predisposed to believe whatever comes out of his mouth hear it and go :rolleyes:
It’s okay to admit he’s not perfect. He’s a politician. This is what they do. Frankly, I think it reflects better on him as a politically-motivated flip-flop than to think he was that far behind other people of his age/education/political demographic. YMMV.
I disagree. I think it’s a bit of both. I don’t find it unreasonable to consider the fact that he changed his mind. A lot of people do - especially in regard to this issue, for which there is a lot of focus and analysis lately. I hope **Bricker **doesn’t mind me using him as an example (and I hope he corrects me if I’m misstating his position), but he change his opinion in the matter. Obama isn’t as good as Bricker?
That said, I don’t think Obama takes a shit without considering the political ramification, but I won’t pretend to know what strategies - long or short term - they’re working by coming out with this now.
I just find it hard to believe that Obama, given his positions on other issues, wouldn’t have reached the rational conclusion on gay marriage a long time ago.
This is the problem with casting this (or any) issue strictly in terms of morality. Even if you happen to agree with the moral imperative to permit gay marriage (as I do), the issue also has a social dimension, and as a political leader (as opposed to, say, a minister bloviating from the pulpit) he has a duty to consider that. Obama’s on record saying he was in favor of civil unions, and that he thought these were adequate for the issue at hand.
Yes, I wish he had publically supported gay marriage sooner, I wish he hadn’t used “states rights” as a fig leaf for his opinion, and he’ll have to live with the embarassment of his “evolution”. But I’ll take him at his word on it.
The people who are against gay marriage are still a lot more against it than the people who are for it. It doesn’t matter if it polls favorably, as long as the people against it are rabidly against it and the people who are for it are only mildly enthusiastic it is an overall loss of votes.
This decision made by the president feels totally right to me. It was the clear moral choice.
I came to believe same sex marriage should be legal before the president, but it took me longer to arrive at it.
On the gay-straight scale I’m very far to the straight extreme. That’s not a brag or an apology, just a fact of my birth. The only mention of homosexuality in my youth was the use of “homo” as an insult - “YOU HOMO!”. So for many years I was uncomfortable around gay people. But over those years all of my limited experiences with homosexuals were positive.
What finally convinced me, was my wife relating about ten years ago how “nice” the adapted children of a local gay couple were. Our three kids knew three of theirs and found them all to be good people and I’ve grown to completely trust my childrens’ judgments in that regard. Raising an adapted child is hugely difficult and that pair was successful at least three times. Enough for me.
It might help if people think of marriage as primarily as the contract it is. Generally speaking a contract must be made between two competent (think adult) and consenting persons. This precludes the whole slippery slope marry an animal argument.
Protecting the rights of same sex couples can do nothing but strengthen the social fabric.
I predict President Obama will be far prouder of this decision than he will be of his Nobel Prize or the killing of Bin Laden.
For this, Obama would be a candidate for an updated version of Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Romney would never take a stand that might lose him the election.
Could manage to polarize the issue though. Forces Romney to come out solidly against it. Makes it a campaign issue now. It may seem as if it’s an eventual given, but pushing Romney to come out against it makes it seem almost threatened. That could motivate.
Framing it as a matter of “equal rights” could make some hard liners squishy though. It’s easy to be against something when it seems like a minor issue or one in which it seems like an even split. If gay marriage supporters start pushing hard enough, people will rethink their position and possibly soften with the exception of the hard liners, but they likely weren’t going to vote for Obama anyways.
You seem to have mixed up numbers and enthusiasm at the end of the post, but regardless, I think your premise is false. If people are only mildly supportive of gay marriage, who is rallying in support of it and why is it becoming legal in more states? Who got politicians to support it in New York and Maryland and who is challenging Prop 8 in California?
As stated on tonight’s news, every state that is expected to be a swing state in November has made SSM illegal. So it doesn’t matter in the slightest if solid Blue states support it. The only thing that counts in the election are swing voters in swing states.
So, it took him a lot longer than it took you to even *start *thinking about it, and he should get extra credit for that? Really? :dubious:
I swear, these efforts to lionize the guy make him look so much worse.
Regardless of how long it took him to decide to go public with what I think was a privately held position, the fact remains that Mr. Obama took a courageous position by merely declaring that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. The political fallout from the right could be considerable, but in the long run, this could prove to be a real rallying point for the progressives who have felt somewhat abandoned by their chosen leader.
Personally, the entire argument seems ludicrous to me. How in the world would anyone challenge the right for two adults to express their love for one another publicly by declaring that they are jointly responsible for their lives together? How can love be limited by gender preference? For years, the religious right has denigrated same-sex relations as immoral in much the same way as premarital sex was considered immoral. And yet when these couples choose to bond one to another in a heartfelt ceremony of love and fidelity, the right declares that this, too, is immoral. Marriage isn’t about sex, y’all. It is about commitment and love and honesty and fidelity and all of those other virtues that the right so dearly holds sacred.
It makes me sad that we, the citizens of the 21st century, are even having this debate.
It matters if the money from the solid blue states helps the campaign get more pro-Obama swing voters to the polls in the swing states.
That’s a point, and it doesn’t appear to be coincidence that the announcement was made just before a Hollywood fund-raiser.
But as an effect, the additional increment that will come from this stance is probably too small to be noticed. People have been estimating that the campaign will need a billion dollars. Is there really a possibility that any increase will be larger than rounding error?
Just ask anyone who is married. 
Will it be that much more, though? That’s the many, many, many dollar question.
And efforts to make his admirable decision look expedient make Romney (and President Obama’s detractors) look better?
Really? :dubious:
Allow me to rephrase:
And efforts to make an admirable decision look merely politically expedient (and therefore somehow tawdry) make Romney (and President Obama’s detractors) look better?
Really? :dubious: