Obama Takes Stand on Gay Marriage

This is a good move for him, even if he loses in November. For Romney to even have a chance this November, he'll have to be starkly against this stance, and in fact, he issued a statement minutes after Obama's declaration that he believes marriage is between one man and one woman.

But the idea here for Obama is multi-pronged. First, he'd been getting skewered by his supporters who are gay marriage proponents for not taking this position before, but really, who else were they going to vote for? Secondly, he can say that he was the first sitting President to publicly support gay marriage. Thirdly, it puts all opponents of his and of gay marriage on the wrong side of history in long view.

Segregation was the law of the land for very long, powerful enough to get a Supreme Court decision in their favor. It, obviously, lost in the long view, and got a new Supreme Court decision to overturn the first decision.

Cementing Civil Rights as a part of everyday culture is a slow moving beast, and Obama helped nudge it along.

Even if Romney wins, how do you think his stance as anti-gay marriage will look like in fifty years? If you don't think our society is slowly going there--with the definition being adjusted to include same sex unions--then you're not paying enough attention. This isn't some African country where you get the death penalty for being gay. Homosexuals in this country have citizenship, are franchised, are allowed to adopt, can openly run for public office and have even enjoyed victories on that front. Hell, the mayor of the fourth largest US city, Annise Parker, is an openly gay lesbian, and that's in Houston, Texas.

Homosexual couples have been enjoying civil unions, but no marriages, in some places, but don't worry; those two things are separate but equal. Hopefully we remember how the last "separate but equal" situation turned out.

And, lastly I just want to state that while there are many folks severely opposed to same sex marriages, there is probably a higher percentage of the population that supports it than the percentage who supported giving minorities all those rights back in the sixties. Civil rights should not be the subject of popular fiat.