Before
President Obama announced his view on marriage equality
had finished “evolving”, it was apparent that for two of
his top officials the evolution was complete.
For
Vice President Joe Biden, the issue is a no-brainer.
“I
am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying
men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women
marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights,
all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said
in a Sunday morning interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.
And
for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, his unequivocal endorsement
of same- sex marriage came on the heels of Biden’s when
in a Monday interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Duncan
was asked if he believed LGBTQ Americans should be allowed
to marry. “Yes, I do,” he replied. (Biden and Ducan now
join Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun
Donovan in favor of marriage equality)
With
a president fence-sitting on the issue, the Democratic damage
control machine had to go into operation, playing down a
perceived in-house rift. Obama’s clean-up man, David Axelrod,
a senior adviser to Obama’s re-election campaign, said Biden’s
gaffes were “entirely consistent with the president’s position.”
But
not everybody was buying Axelrod’s Orwellian remark.
NBC’s
Chuck Todd said with a grin, “So help me out here. He opposes
bans on gay marriage, but he doesn’t yet support gay marriage?”
CNN’s
Jessica Yellin asked whether Obama was trying to “have it
both ways before an election” and whether he should “stop
dancing around the issue.”
ABC’s
Jake Tapper said that “it seems cynical to hide this prior
to the election” and that “I don’t want to hear the same
talking points 15 times in a row.”
But
Obama had to come out and stop hiding from the American
voter on this issue. The president’s “evolving” rumination
on same-sex marriage had little to do with the moral issue
of an American disenfranchised group’s struggle for civil
rights. It did have, however, everything to do with whether
the issue is a political liability to his re-election bid.
Or
“simply put: The political upside of coming out in support
of gay marriage is simply not as high as the political downside
of coming out in support of gay marriage” Washington
Post columnist Chris Cillizza wrote.
And
the poll numbers suggest it. According
to three Post-ABC News polls taken between March 2011 and
March 2012, 52 percent of Americans say same-sex marriage
should be legal whereas 44 percent say same-sex marriage
should remain illegal.
Within
subgroups like black and white Americans, not surprisingly,
more white Americans favor same-sex marriage at 53 percent
to 42 percent of African Americans; one of Obama’s large
voter blocks, support same-sex marriage. And the generational divide reveal that a younger
population overwhelmingly supports same-sex marriage whereas
those 60 and over don’t.
But
according to a recent Pew Research Center
poll, 50 percent of American voters prefer Romney opposition
same-sex Marriage to Obama’s 43 percent who support it.
In
many ways Obama had repeatedly demonstrated that he had
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) voters
in his back pocket, similar in ways he has African American
voters. An overwhelming number of us are not Republicans
and are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as our 2012
presidential choice, especially those of us in Massachusetts
who remember when Romney was governor.
In
his Washington Post column, “No comparison between
Obama and Romney on same-sex marriage,” Jonathan Capehart
wrote “make no mistake: There is no comparison between Obama
and Mitt Romney when it comes to respecting the dignity
of gay men and lesbians and their families...last summer,
Romney signed NOM’s noxious pledge to ‘support marriage.’ Among the things Romney promised to do is
enshrine discrimination into our nation’s Constitution through
an amendment and to defend the so-called Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) in court. These are all actions Obama opposes.”
And
Obama could boast that his administration had been the best
friend LGBTQ Americans have ever had. With the repeal of
the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” signing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes
Prevention Act, and his refusal to argue in court for the
Defense of Marriage Act, to name a few, many Obama supporters
suggest these are significant accomplishments that could
only happen with a LGBTQ activist and ally in the White
House
But
to some in the LGBTQ community and our allies, Obama came
across as a slippery pol.
“There’s
one thing that has always irked me about Obama’s evolutionary
narrative on same-sex marriage - and that’s not his position
on it per se so much as the insincerity of his homophobia.
To take Obama at his word, same-sex marriage is something
he ‘wrestles’ with, something he thinks a lot about and
might support but for a deep conflict with his Christian
faith. I’m not privy to what goes on in the president’s
head, but frankly, this smells like bullshit,” Richard Kim
wrote in “Obama’s ‘Evolving’ Position on Gay Marriage - Oh,
Puhleeze!”
In
this last election bid, Obama was attempting to shrewdly
fence-sit on the issue while winking a stealth nod our way.
And he was playing a game of “go away closer,” giving some
us LGBTQ voters the hope that he was merely withholding
support on marriage equality until after his re-election.
But
this was one time, perhaps too many, that Obama’s gamble
with us LGBTQ voters - albeit carefully calculated - would
very well be costly.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion
columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of
the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and
Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific
School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a
graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary
at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American
church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her
doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s
list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author
of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American
feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society
that is frequently invisible. Her website
is
irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe.
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