President Obama Announces Support for Gay Marriage

[Wiglaf]

Joe's big mouth was hardly a secret before he was initially picked for VP. And this is hardly the first dumb thing Biden has done. And I would think that forcing Biden off the ticket would be a bigger embarrassment to the administration than just keeping him locked up and doing damage control whenever they accidentally let him talk in public.

It was not a 'dumb thing.' every one in D.C. knows it was a trial balloon.

[Guynemer]

If over half of Americans support gay marriage, why is it barred in 44 states*? It appears that people who wanted to ban gay marriage got into office just fine (and then some) with that minority position - or those who wanted to allow gay marriage haven't made it a central campaign promise - will people really change their vote based on an issue they don't seem to care that much about? Those who care most seem to be against the idea.

*from your quoted article, not sure if that means a law was passed to ban it, or no law passed to allow it.

Edit - and 44 doesn't appear to be the reflective figure, according to Wiki.

The vast majority of those laws were passed between 5-10 years ago, give or take. Gay marriage has only gained majority support in the public-at-large within the last year.

[DinoDoc]

Why has it failed every time it has been put up for a popular vote then?

[Elok]

I'm going to guess that old people turn out a lot more for referenda than the young.

[regexcellent]

That and the fact that supporters of gay marriage, aside from gay people themselves (who make up a small portion of the population), generally can't be bothered to vote as much on that issue as people who are opposed to it. The enthusiasm gap (as measured by "strongly support" versus "strongly oppose") is closing, but not the actual impetus to go vote. It's a secondary issue for most people, but something that strongly energizes social conservatives.

[regexcellent]

The vast majority of those laws were passed between 5-10 years ago, give or take. Gay marriage has only gained majority support in the public-at-large within the last year.

Moreover the support is well within margin of error.

[giblets]

I'm going to guess that old people turn out a lot more for referenda than the young.

Socially bigoted churches also probably play a role in getting the religiously bigoted to turn out.

[Elok]

Churches are quite good at mobilizing their flock, for good or ill, yes.

[MrFun]

Interesting thoughts on the apparent contradiction between majority support for gay marriage, with the actual voting results favoring bans on gay marriage. But as Guy said, things have changed in regard to gay marriage within just the past five years.

[MrFun]

On another note, this article states that President Obama was NOT upset with Biden's statement favoring gay marriage. I will quote the relevant excerpt of the article here.

Those top officials, speaking on condition that they not be named or quoted, said that the president was not agitated about Biden's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." Instead, he decided that he had to make his position known sooner rather than later. The administration had knowledge of Biden's remarks after he taped his interview last Friday. By Tuesday morning, aides began putting a plan in motion.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

You'd also have to believe Biden can stick to a script. Occam's Razor, people.

If one takes Obama at his word (ha ha) according to the Robin Roberts interview he had arrived at this decision for an undisclosed period of time (Months back?). While Biden got "out over his skis", it would imply Obama was going to release his decided position at some point (however, perhaps not during the campaign). I find it very plausible that Biden is a moron in much the same way that Oerdin is always wrong. So with that in mind, a making lemonade out of lemons situation. Obama could have let the issue die however he chose to address the issue. But why? IMO Obama chose to discuss the issue now rather than let it go away b/c.

1) NC - he gets to somehow claim all southerners and by implication GOP are homophobic racists. This despite the fact that he could have used his standing as leader of the Democratic Party and the first AA POTUS to urge the black commmunity to accept gay marriage ( voted 2-1 against gay marriage by the AA community).

2) Poor fund raising - The reports have been coming in that Obama has been flagging in fund raising. This announcement will net him a substantial haul in the Hollywood sweepstakes at Clooneys home.

[MrFun]

For fvcks sake - Obama is not claiming/implying that all white Southerners are racist and homophobic.

[Berzerker]

I'm going to guess that old people turn out a lot more for referenda than the young.

yup, and voting in general

the GOP is shooting itself in the foot like with latinos and immigration, 10-15 years and this'll be another nail in the GOP coffin

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I suppose now that he has endorsed the states rights approach to gay marriage that means the DOJ will start enforcing DOMA.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To be fair, DOMA impacts Federal acceptance more than state acceptance (already in Full Faith and Credit Clause states could opt out of recognizing marriages that they objected to on the grounds of public policy - like Age of Concent or Incest issues).