Amid furious Beltway speculation and growing calls for an unequivocal position on marriage from LGBT groups and the national media, President Barack Obama said in a Wednesday interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts that his decision stemmed from his own experience with gay staff in committed relationships as well as the continued discrimination against gay service members who can now serve openly in the military following repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but are denied the same basic equal rights as their heterosexual counterparts.
“I’ve stood on the side of broader equality I hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” the president said. "But I have to tell you that over the course of several years, as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said.
The groundbreaking comments mark the first time that a sitting president has publicly voiced support for same-sex marriage, and comes just three days after Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with NBC that he supports such rights for gay and lesbian couples. “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said.
Biden’s comments and the intense media speculation they unleashed perhaps left little room for Obama’s continued “evolution” on the matter, precipitating Wednesday’s interview with ABC, described by some as “hastily arranged.”
Though multiple national polls show a clear trend in marriage equality support — a recent Gallup poll showed 50% of Americans favor same-sex marriage, with previous polls as high as 53% in support — it’s unclear how the president’s position will affect his reelection bid, particularly in critical swing states, including North Carolina.
In a statement released soon after the president’s remarks were aired, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, said, “Today, President Obama made history by boldly stating that gay and lesbian Americans should be fully and equally part of the fabric of American society and that our families deserve nothing less than the equal respect and recognition that comes through marriage. His presidency has shown that our nation can move beyond its shameful history of discrimination and injustice. In him, millions of young Americans have seen that their futures will not be limited by what makes them different.”
Chad Griffin, who will take Solmonese’s place at the LGBT organization next month, said that Obama’s marriage equality endorsement “will be celebrated by generations to come.”
Though Obama’s comments have no immediate impact on the actual state landscape of marriage rights, the presidential imprint on the freedom to marry is perhaps incalculable in its historic significance. The remarks come more than a year after the Obama administration took the bold step of declining to defend the antigay Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and bars couples from a multitude of rights and responsibilities.
On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined Biden in publicly supporting marriage equality. Another cabinet official, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, voiced his personal support for same-sex marriage last fall, while other cabinet members have avoided comment on the subject.
Minutes before the ABC interview was to begin, Senator Joseph Lieberman, when asked by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell about the president’s position, said, “If he’s going to endorse [marriage equality], I respect him for having the guts to say what he believes.”
Obama’s confusing position on the issue, where he has opposed state initiatives to ban gay marriage yet evaded stating his own personal beliefs for some time, had drawn increasing fire from both sides of the aisle. Some Republicans have slammed the president for what they see as a cynical equivocation on the issue and sought to equate his position with that of Mitt Romney. That framing is dishonest and inaccurate, Obama supporters charged back, given Romney supports a federal marriage amendment barring equality and would uphold the Defense of Marriage Act.
During a campaign event Wednesday in Colorado, presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney dodged questions from reporters on gay marriage, though he told a local Fox News affiliate in an interview, "I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name. My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate, but that the others are not."
The “evolving” nature of the President’s position was first explained to AmericaBlog’s Joe Sudbay in October 2010. Two months later he said in a White House news conference on the subject, “My feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this. I have friends, I have people who work for me who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions. And they are extraordinary people. And this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about.”
Previously, the president said that he was in favor of civil unions, but not marriage, though in a 1996 questionnaire while running for state senate in Illinois, Obama said he would favor legalization of same-sex marriages.
President Obama visits Los Angeles on a campaign swing Thursday, one that will include a mega-fundraiser hosted by George Clooney that will be attended by national pro-marriage equality supporters including figures including director Rob Reiner, a board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which organized the federal lawsuit against California’s Proposition 8.
Story developing.
Reporting by Andrew Harmon.
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