by Matt Spence
I wanted to give this one time to settle before sharing my thoughts - mostly because my initial thoughts on the President's gay marriage "announcement" were not flattering and I was wondering if anyone else felt the way I did. To be honest, I was quite surprised at the amount of positive reaction from gay leaders and progressives. Even
right here in this blog from my esteemed colleague Ben. There has been all sorts of praise for the president's personal revelation that gay people are people too and that they love just as straight people love. Hold on a second, because here's what he actually said:
"What I've come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens."
Less than full citizens. If the president truly agreed with that, he would not have hid behind states rights. He would not have said that an issue of citizenship, civil rights really, should be decided at the state level. No, it has become his stance that social policy is decided at the state level and that gay marriage is an issue of social policy. (Boy, that should make some Reaganites quite happy...)
The opinion that states should decide certainly does not match up with his friends and co-workers who see it as an issue of equality and civil rights. The 14th Amendment is to the United States Constitution, is it not? If he truly felt this was a civil rights issue, this might have been his stance. Otherwise, it felt awfully political to me. Say you're in favor personally in the hopes that your VP will shut up and your Secretary of Education will stick to education -- put it back on the states so that you don't have to actually stand for any policy that might come before you to sign or veto. Although that may be different from Mitt Romney's opinion, it is no different from how Mitt Romney would govern - and that should give him, and plenty of others, reason to pause.
Of course, North Carolina stepped up right away to expose the cop-out, exercising the President's stated opinion of state's rights and banning gay marriage. That the President shared his "disappointment" with the public surely must have rung quite hollow with the gay residents of North Carolina. I wonder if any of those personal friends and co-workers are from or have gay friends in North Carolina... and I wonder how they feel about the President's "support" today.
Apparently the American public is quite cynical about it as well - according to a
NY Times/CBS News poll, 67% believe that his statement was motivated by politics and not what he believes to be right. I find this interesting for a few reasons, most of all because there is such a lack of faith in the President's own words about it. This isn't just the echo chamber either - if that were so, the number would be closer to 1/2 than 2/3. That extra 17% could pose a huge problem in November if the message is that Americans find the words that come out of his mouth to be no different or more trustworthy than any other politician. To me, it reflects an undercurrent of doubt about the President's willingness to lead on a tough issue... and that is a killer. People do not want to elect a Leader of the Free World who does not seem to be a leader.
Many have attacked the President's leadership on this issue, saying that the Biden/Duncan combo forced him into it. I think Ben's article (linked above) did a pretty good job of dispelling that theory. I have to say that I do not disagree with the cynicism about the President's leadership, it is just that my cynicism is born of very different reasons. In my opinion, for the President to be forced to say something everyone already believed to be your opinion because your loose-lipped VP spouted off again is nowhere near as damaging as failing to lead because you either 1) can't make up your mind about what legal rights gay people should have to marriage or 2) haven't "evolved" to the point where you believe that your personal opinion should be reflected in policy or 3) do not believe that gay marriage is a civil rights issue.
None of those are good. The ironic thing is this; it may just be that the President really does not agree with gay marriage as the law of the land - as he said but nobody believed - and that he has truly been reassessing his opinion. Maybe he hasn't really worked through the policy implications of these new thoughts. Maybe he hasn't "evolved" enough to see it as a civil rights issue. But the electoral poison is that maybe, just maybe, on this issue he just won't lead.
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