Posted on 01/15/2009 7:25:12 AM PST by Matchett-PI
“But, what can he do about it?” ~hunter112
One step forward... two steps back... one step forward... two steps back... one step...
He indicates his intentions here:
Obama changed views on gay marriage
Windy City Times Exclusive: WCT Examines His Step Back
by Tracy Baim, News analysis
http://www.wctimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=20230
What follows are Obama’s responses in our Windy City Times 2004 interview, six years after his successful 1996 state Senate run, when he was now running for U.S. Senate: [snip]
TB: But you think, strategically, gay marriage isn’t going to happen so you won’t support it at this time?
Obama: What I’m saying is that strategically, I think we can get civil unions passed. I think we can get SB 101 passed. I think that to the extent that we can get the rights, I’m less concerned about the name. And I think that is my No. 1 priority, is an environment in which the Republicans are going to use a particular language that has all sorts of connotations in the broader culture as a wedge issue, to prevent us moving forward, in securing those rights, then I don’t want to play their game.”
After Obama’s WCT interview, he called to clarify that he opposed the proposed U.S. Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He said he also opposed the two proposed state bills banning same-sex marriage. During his presidential campaign, he has remained consistent with his 2004 position, but clearly he has moved away from the 1996 statement of “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages.”
A rose is a rose is a rose, but civil unions are not “marriage” unless 100 percent of the benefits are the same across all states and the federal government.
Tracy Baim is publisher and executive editor of Windy City Times. She was the co-founder and publisher of Outlines newspaper.
It IS filled out by Bam-Bam! He CAN’T say a staffer checked the wrong box!
Habit. It's a common error for the first few weeks of a year.
Exactly.
He’s pushing for more bailouts, a Keynesian “stimulus package”, a “global climate change” bill, socialized health care, and a litany of other bad ideas. Is this really what we’re going to waste our energy on?
This was posted as a matter of record for the FR archives on Obama.
Bite me.
Opposing or supporting a Federal Marriage Amendment is a political nonissue, too, one is not going to pass. It takes thirteen states to keep a proposed amendment from becoming part of the Constitution, surely there are at least fifteen that would never go along with this. Think of the hardcore blue states that voted for Dukakis in 1988. Many of them have gay marriage or civil union in some form right now.
Obama's been trumped pretty effectively on this by the thirty states that banned gay marriage in their constitutions. The current five conservative SCOTUS Justices are pretty much hale and hearty, and can survive his time in office. They cannot look at the ban on gay marriage and call it "old fashioned" law when three-fifths of the states have enshrined it into their constitutions in just the last ten years.
Why did Obama date it 95 instead of 96?
Habit. It’s a common error for the first few weeks of a year.
BUT BUT BUT He’s the smartest man in the world. He doesn’t make COMMON errors.
I’m spending the next four years proclaiming what a dumbass he is, and what dupes those who voted for him are.
Seriously, it REALLY makes them angry when you make fun of “the one’s” intelligence.
bttt
2010 UPDATE to this January 2009 thread:
The Future of an Illusion (In the past, Obama said he was against gay-marriage. Was he really?)
National Review ^ | 12/29/2010 | The Editors
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 9:44:53 AM by SeekAndFind
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2648826/posts
For much of the last decade which is to say, for his entire national career President Obama has said that he opposes same-sex marriage. Now he says that his “attitudes are evolving” on same-sex marriage. Let’s review the record.
In 1996, at a time when public opinion ran strongly against same-sex marriage, he indicated his support for it on two candidate questionnaires. He has consistently opposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He opposes state constitutional amendments doing the same thing: In 2008, when the California supreme court ruled that the state constitution required official recognition of same-sex marriages, he said that he “respected” the decision and opposed a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to undo it.
At a time when other Democrats were talking about modifying the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama favored repealing it and thus forcing states to recognize same-sex marriages established in other states. His administration has made a quarter-hearted defense (if that) of the act’s constitutionality in court, a point which a federal judge cited in striking down the law.
So, to recap: President Obama who has in the past said he supports same-sex marriage, who has consistently opposed any effort to block same-sex marriage, and who says he might support it (again) in the future opposes same-sex marriage. The Washington Post, speculating in its news pages about Obama’s future evolution to open supporter of same-sex marriage, sounds a cautionary political note: “Indeed, public opinion is so divided on the issue that the president would probably need months to sway voters to his position.” Once he decides what it is, of course.
As we have noted before, liberalism has found the perfect division of labor: Elected officials can pretend to oppose same-sex marriage, secure in the knowledge that courts will pretend to interpret the law. Same-sex marriage is the “civil-rights movement” that can’t survive speaking the truth. bttt
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