Obama’s support small step toward marriage equality

Shortly after the president endorsed marriage equality, a blogger posted the news headlined “Obama says same-sex marriage should be legal; world doesn’t end.”

As if to confirm that assessment, recent polls have found that his declaration hasn’t changed much.

An equal number of people still seem to strongly oppose or strongly support gay marriage. More younger Americans remain in favor than older people, which was the case previously. States like North Carolina continue to embed amendments in their constitutions that either define wedded locks as between one each of man and woman, or forbid homosexual couples from taking part in the benefits of marriage.

On the political front, President Barack Obama and his likely Republican challenger are still in a dead heat in the countless tracking polls that swamp the Web almost hour by hour. In down-ballot contests, the more courageous candidates, or at least those who are solid with their camps, freely state their positions, while the less confident hedge their bets or avoid the question for fear of setting themselves at odds with voters. The timorous persist in dodging the issue by placing it at the feet of the courts or in the hands of citizens in so-called popular votes.

Before his announcement, Obama had not embraced marriage equality, saying that while he was sympathetic to gays, his position was still evolving. Whether his hand was forced by his vice president’s candid statement of support or the matter was a Machiavellian political strategy that had Joe Biden testing the waters, what transpired will, in time, bring change.

For all the talk of flat-line polls, shrugs and mehs from the unimpressed, since Obama became the “first sitting U.S. president” to back same-sex marriage, as the BBC breathlessly reported, there has been a shift. His support has people talking and thinking.

Some of this has been negative. Organizations whose life-blood donations rely on keeping gay marriage at bay warned of dire ballot-box consequences. They reiterated rehearsed lines about the destruction of families that would come if the rights of marriage were extended to single-sex couples, ignoring the benefits stable relationships provide for people and their children regardless of gender. They contend that religious independence would fall to demands of gay couples without acknowledging that disagreements can be resolved with rational remedies.

Much has been made of the idea that the African-American vote will be lost to Obama and that though religion plays a part in the lives of many black people, that, too, can cut both ways. It was encouraging that leaders of the NAACP last weekend voted to back same-sex marriage as a right assured by the 14th Amendment. The step the organization took emphasized equality, which is what many Americans who have encountered discrimination and intolerance seek. It is what gay, lesbian and transgender Americans seek. Their wait may be long, their rights may arrive gradually as with Obama’s evolution, but they will come and the world won’t end because of them.

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Cynthia Oi can be reached at coi@staradvertiser.com.