Rick Perry: "Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A-flipping and a-flopping goes Texas governor, right-wing evangelical theocrat, and possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination Rick Perry.

Is it okay for states to legalize same-sex marriage or not?

Apparently it was not so long ago, when he was pushing states' rights, but now, eyeing the White House and in need of support from the religious right, he's come out in support of federal action:

So much for states' rights.

Texas Governor Rick Perry (R), one of the country's most prominent defenders of the 10th Amendment, is making an exception when it comes to gay marriage. After initially telling reporters that it's "fine with me" if states like New York legalize same-sex unions through their own legislature, Perry is pulling a 180 and calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment.

Perry, who is flirting with a presidential bid, clarified his position to Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in an interview.

"I probably needed to add a few words after that 'it's fine with me' and that it's fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue," he said. "Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me. My stance hasn't changed."

Well, no, it has. His personal stance may not have changed -- he's against same-sex marriage and, if it were up to him, there wouldn't be any -- but his political stance has -- he thinks there should be a federal ban that denies states the right to legalize it on their own.

As Joe explains: "This is just more evidence of how the dominionists are forcing the GOP presidential field to conform to their vision of a Christian theocracy." 

Good times.

(photo)

Michele Bachmann signs anti-gay, anti-porn pledge

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Michele Bachmann has risen to the #2 in the Republican presidential field, behind Mitt Romney. Can she actually win the nomination? Yes, particularly if it comes down to a one-on-one against Romney and she manages to secure both Tea Party and "social conservative support" from the grassroots base.

But the question is how she gets there.

While she's certainly crazy, in terms of advocating extremist positions on a wide variety of issues and advancing ridiculous conspiracy theories, the only way she can defeat Romney and whoever else might challenge seriously for the nomination (e.g., Rick Perry, who would eat into her support from social conservatives) is to appear to be not crazy, or at least much less crazy than she really is. This is why she's recently been in walk-back mode, distancing herself from her own views and assertions in order to present herself as a viable presidential possibility, that is, as sane.

But she can only walk back so much. She's still a Tea Party darling and, lest we forget, a rampaging social conservative, and while she needs to appear to be less crazy she also needs to continues to stress her right-wing bona fides in order not to lose her core support, particularly if someone like Perry gets in the race. And, of course, she is what she is. It's as simple as that. She can't run away from herself altogether.

And stress her bona fides she did:

Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge, vowing to support a constitutional amendment that defines marriage between a man and a woman, and which calls for a ban on all pornography.

"The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family," sponsored by the Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative organization, equates same-sex marriage with bigamy and polygamy and calls on candidates to promise to be faithful to their spouses.

Etc., etc. In other words, right-wing evangelical theocracy, just the sort of thing you'd expect from her, along with her anti-government Tea Party views. There is undeniable inconsistency here, of course. How is it possible to combine theocracy with the sort of libertarianism that prevails among Teabaggers? Well, it doesn't matter, and it needn't make all any sense, not as she aggressively courts multiple Republican constituencies. She can talk about small government and the Tenth Amendment while also pushing for an activist, bigoted government regulating morality, a government that leaves our money alone while closely monitoring what we do in our bedrooms or in front of our computers or televisions. Maybe that makes some sort of distorted sense way out on the right. It probably does. Republicans are full of inconsistencies. Bachmann is hardly alone there.

But how would this sort of thing play out in a general election. Not well. While Bachmann may win much of the extremist GOP base, there's no way independents or even many establishment-minded Republicans would ever support her, and this ridiculous pledge just makes matters worse for her in that regard. Which is why she'll need to keep walking back and walking back so much of what she has stood for in the past. Who knows, she might even have to walk this back in the not-so-distant future. Anti-gay bigotry plays well in the GOP, after all, but are Americans really prepared to give up their porn?

**********

Oh, by the way, the pledge also states that black children were better off under slavery than they are now:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.

This is appallingly ignorant even by conservative standards.

But Bachmann signed the pledge, so she must believe it. One hopes that the media question her about it and refuse to let her brush it aside.

Michele Bachmann bobs and weaves on same-sex marriage, sort of

By Richard K. Barry

Though it makes me very uncomfortable to say this, I continue to be grudgingly impressed by Michele Bachmann. I have no doubt that she is a nut-job right-winger. I am certain that if she got anywhere near the presidency, she would be a disaster for the country, yet her comments on New York's decision to sanction same-sex marriage are interesting.

In essence, she played the state's rights card.

In an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, she said that despite her view that marriage should be between a man and a woman, she supports New York's right to institute marriage equality because under the 10th Amendment, the states have the right to do so.

BACHMANN: In New York state, they have passed the law at the legislative level, and, under the 10th Amendment, the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set.

WALLACE: So even though you oppose it, then it's ok from - your point of view - for New York to say that same-sex marriage is legal.

BACHMANN: That is up to the people of New York. I think that it's best to allow the people to decide this issue. I think it's best if there is an amendment on the ballot, where the people can weigh in.

WALLACE: But you would agree, if it's passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor then it's the state's position.

BACHMANN: It's state law. And the 10th Amendment reserves the right the states.

As ThinkProgress points out:

Bachmann's position is notable given the large number of politically active anti-LGBT activists and Republican lawmakers across the country that would likely let their opposition to equality trump their belief in state's rights. Bachmann later said, however, that she would prefer a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, but that before such an amendment was enacted, the states should be free to do as they wish.

What makes this clever on Bachmann's part is that, while few are going to doubt her real intention, she attempts to moderate it just enough to appeal to those who may not be particularly energized by the issue one way or the other or who might not like the ugliness of the homophobia that invariably accompanies opposition to same-sex marriage.

It also enables her to maintain her true position, which appeals to her base, while allowing her to sidestep protracted culture war arguments that can only take her and her party off the message that 'it's about the economy, stupid."

I'm not saying it's going to work, but the fact that she is thinking in these terms makes her, or her advisors, a lot smarter than stubborn social conservatives who will never bust through a certain ceiling of national support.

Certainly this is less important in the nomination race than in the general election, but making a serious run at the nomination surely also means cobbling together a coalition of supporters from both the hard-right and the pragmatic right of the Republican Party and Bachmann is at least showing that she gets that.

And if she's still around for the general election, at either the top or bottom of the ticket (God help us), she's got a way to talk about a very important social conservative issue that may not completely alienate swing voters.

Yeah, she's sucking and blowing at the same time, but is there really going to be any other way to get the GOP presidential nomination or for a Republican to get to the White House?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

New York State Republicans show Obama the way on same-sex marriage

By Richard K. Barry

I'm certainly proud of my home state of New York today, which voted yesterday to legalize same-sex marriage 33 to 29. The measure was able to pass because four members of the Republican majority joined all but one Democrat in the Senate to support the measure.

Of note were comments made by Sen. Mark Grisanti, a GOP freshman from Buffalo, who had been undecided saying that he could not deny anyone basic human rights. He continued by saying that "I apologize to those I offend. But I believe you can be wiser today than yesterday. I believe this state needs to provide equal rights and protection for all its residents."

In changing his vote, GOP Sen. Stephen Saland said that "while I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know that my vote is a vote of conscience. I am doing the right thing to support marriage equality."

The legislation was signed last night at 11:55 p.m. by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and will go into effect in 30 days, which means that same-sex couples will be able to marry in New York by late July.

Currently five states allow same-sex marriage: Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well at the District of Columbia.

There would appear to be no greater indication of a sea change on the issue than that only two years ago the New York State Senate, then controlled by Democrats, easily rejected the measure but now a Republican controlled Senate has passed it.

The difference, of course, is that Gov. Cuomo has made this a priority and used his significant resources and political capital to help make it happen.

Of great significance as well is that public opinion is changing. As the New York Times reports:

In 2004, according to a Quinnipiac poll, 37 percent of the state's residents supported allowing same-sex couples to wed. This year, 58 percent of them did.

Just in terms of the raw politics involved, New York is by far the largest state to have passed legislation to recognize same-sex marriage and, as the Times writes, "is home to a large, visible, and politically influential gay community." The implications are huge.

But dozens of other states have constitutional amendments or laws banning same-sex marriage and the issue is sure to be a part of the landscape in the culture wars that have been and will continue to define the 2012 election cycle.

Which, of course, brings us to President Obama, who addressed more than 600 donors at a fund-raiser on Thursday night of the LGBT Leadership Council Gala in New York City, many of whom probably thought they would hear something different from the President given recent reports of his "evolving stance" on marriage equality.

Alas, that was not to be, as he offered only mention of past accomplishments on same-sex equality without in fact getting close to adding marriage to the list.

I do understand politics and I understand that America is a big country with complex national political dynamics, but if Republican legislators can stand up and say that they have decided to support same-sex marriage simply because it is the right thing to do, then the man who promised to bring us hope for a better future should be able to do the same thing.

I'm getting a little tired of this act. When four GOP New York State Senators are out ahead of you, Mr. President, on issues of basic human rights, it's time to stop evolving and start acting. When Republicans decide that they must risk their own political future to do the right thing on something so fundamental, you might want to think again about your own position.

C'mon. Surprise us.

Below is a clip of Sen. Grisanti giving reasons for his changed vote.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Is the Religious Right coming around on same-sex marriage?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Mother Jones is reporting, the theocratic, evangelical right may finally be realizing that it is losing its battle against marriage equality. As Jim Daly, president of James Dobson's Focus on the Family puts it:

We're winning the younger generation on abortion, at least in theory. What about same-sex marriage? We're losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don't know if that's going to change with a little more age -- demographers would say probably not. We've probably lost that. I don't want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.

They're not winning on abortion and they're certainly not winning on same-sex marriage.

Now, Daly certainly doesn't speak for the entirety of his movement, but "it can't help the anti-gay religious right to have such a prominent social conservative say that the crusade against gay marriage has essentially been lost and that it's time to accept that reality and move on." 

The Religious Right isn't coming around on same-sex marriage, certainly not, and I suspect that Daly won't find much agreement among his fellow Christianists. Still, it's somewhat encouraging that reality -- if not yet freedom, equality, and justice -- is breaking through into the darkness.

Gay marriage! In the Navy!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Good riddance, DADT. Welcome aboard, same-sex marriage:

The military establishment, it appears, is willing to drag congressional Republicans kicking and screaming into the post-Don't Ask, Don't Tell era. The US Navy has authorized its chaplains to perform same-sex marriages on military bases in states that legally recognize such unions. That news came in a memo from the service's head chaplain (PDF), dated April 13:

Consistent with the tenets of his or her religious organization, a chaplain may officiate a same-sex, civil marriage: if it is conducted in accordance with a state that permits same-sex marriage or union; and if that chaplain is, according to the applicable state and local laws, otherwise fully certified to officiate that state’s marriages...if the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then base facilities may normally be used to celebrate the marriage. This is true for purely religious services (e.g., a chaplain blessing a union) or a traditional wedding (e.g., a chaplain both blessing and conducting the ceremony).

The policy's unlikely to have a significant impact on gay or military communities: There's no naval base, for example, in Iowa, one of five states (along with the District of Columbia) that recognize same-sex marriages. And until the DADT repeal is certified by the Pentagon, no service members are likely to be hitching up at the Washington Navy Yard. Not only that, chaplains who disagree with gay marriage on theological grounds are under no obligation to perform the ceremonies, which shrinks the pool of willing wedding officiators to virtually nil.

No, but it's a start, and an extemely positive one. Republicans, bigoted or otherwise, aren't amused, of course, but the military, along with the rest of America, is slowly embracing equal rights for gays and lesbians, with retrograde conservative views becoming more and more the ugly relics of an ugly past.

Marriage equality is coming. And, with it, America, and its military, will be a much better place.

The new same-sex marriage majority

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Perhaps it was only a matter of time. Whatever the case, the time has come:

More than half of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry, a first in nearly a decade of polls by ABC News and The Washington Post.

This milestone result caps a dramatic, long-term shift in public attitudes. From a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, support for gay marriage has grown to 53 percent today. Forty-four percent are opposed, down 18 points from that 2004 survey. 

Of course, the issue remains divisive, with the divisions largely generational and ideological. Republicans and especially evangelical conservatives oppose same-sex marriage, as do older age cohorts.

But the trend is clear: support for same-sex marriage is growing and the majority will continue to expand. It's only a matter of time before same-sex marriage becomes part of the American social landscape, accepted as, for lack of a better word, "normal."

Conservative opposition will remain, but, even there, it will weaken, just as conservative opposition to, say, civil rights has weakened over time. Ultimately, even conservatives (or future generations of conservatives) come to accept, however reluctantly, that which they vehemently opposed. Perhaps their energy wears out, perhaps they simply come to accept the new social norms, and, even if they don't admit it, come to see their opposition as retrograde bigotry.

Many younger Americans who support same-sex marriage now will get more conservative as they age, but this poll indicates that opposition among older Americans is weakening. Simply put, generations are, for the most part, getting more liberal.

And even those groups with the staunchest opposition are seeing changes:

The issue remains divisive; as many adults "strongly" oppose gay marriage as strongly support it, and opposition rises to more than 2-1 among Republicans and conservatives and 3-1 among evangelical white Protestants, a core conservative group. But opposition to gay marriage has weakened in these groups from its levels a few years ago, and support has grown sharply among others – notably, among Catholics, political moderates, people in their 30s and 40s and men. 

Looking ahead to the American future, there are many reasons to despair. Thankfully, though, there are a few indicators of progress. This is one of them, and America will be a much better place once it legalizes same-sex marriage -- from Alaska to Florida, from Hawaii to Maine -- and puts an end to the institutionalized bigotry of sexual orientation for good.

Hawaii legalizes same-sex civil unions

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well done, Hawaii, well done:

Less than a year after seeing the push for civil unions vetoed, gay rights advocates cheered as Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill legalizing civil unions and making Hawaii the seventh state to grant such privileges to same-sex couples.

Abercrombie signed the legislation at a ceremony [yesterday] at historic Washington Place.

"E Komo Mai: It means all are welcome," Abercrombie said in remarks before signing the bill into law. "This signing today of this measure says to all of the world that they are welcome. That everyone is a brother or sister here in paradise."

"The legalization of civil unions in Hawaii represents in my mind equal rights for all people," he said.

Well, yes, sort of. To me, there will not be equal rights in this area until there is full marriage equality, and that also means equal terminology as well. They shouldn't be "civil unions," they should be "marriages." Either that or, perhaps preferably, all state-sanctioned partnerships that we currently call "marriages" should be called "civil unions," including heterosexual ones.

It's not an insignificant point, as homosexual couples should be able to be married, if that is what heterosexual couple are allowed to be, though I understand that the bill the governor signed into law "allows all couples — same-sex and heterosexual — to enter into a civil union, a legal status with all the rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities as traditional marriage."

Yes, I'd be happy if every state allowed such civil unions, but there needs to be complete marriage equality.

Zach Wahls, Iowa, and the struggle for marriage equality

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm way late coming to this, but I think this clip is still worth posting.

On February 1, as you may remember, the Iowa House voted 62-37 in support of a resolution that would ban same-sex marriage in that state by way of an amendment to the state constitution. (For a history of same-sex marriage in Iowa, see here. On August 3, 2009, the state Supreme Court struck down a 1998 law that restricted marriage to heterosexual couples, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.) The resolution will now go to the Senate, where Democrats, in the majority, will likely block it.

Before the House vote, there was considerable public testimony for and against. I recently came across this clip, a deeply moving statement against the resolution by Zach Wahls, a 19-year old student at the University of Iowa, and the proud son of a married lesbian couple. As the House vote indicates, bigotry is a powerful force, but ultimately I believe that justice, full marriage equality, will prevail, not just in Iowa but across the U.S., just as in Canada and elsewhere.

This is what is needed to prevail, the voice of truth. It's awesome:

Think of the children

By Mustang Bobby

The perennial campaign from the "traditional marriage" crowd is that gays and lesbians are out to destroy families. They shouldn't be allowed to get married because they can't have children in the old-fashioned way, or raising kids in a home with two mommies or two daddies is not the best environment for children.

Aside from the fact that these people never really define what "traditional marriage" is, are they speaking of marriage from biblical times where a man could have as many wives as he could afford, or where a father sold his daughter to the guy in the next county as part of a land swap and slaves, or the arranged marriages between royal households to keep European nations from going to war? The same-sex marriage opponents deal in abstracts. They cannot point to any reliable scientific studies to prove their point that same-sex households are any less nurturing than straight ones. Their research is based on watching the Leave It to Beaver marathon on TV Land.

That seemed to be the mindset in Iowa as the state legislature voted this week to try to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state. This is in knee-jerk response to the state supreme court ruling in April 2009 that overturned the state laws against same-sex marriage. However, the amendment still needs to go to the state Senate, and then get passed again by both houses in the legislative session next year to go into effect.

The legal maneuvering is one thing. What is often left out is the actual people who live and form the families that this amendment is targeting. It's one thing to talk about family values in the abstract -- "oh, think of the children" -- but it's quite another thing when you hear from the children themselves, as the Iowa representatives did from 19-year-old Zach Wahls:

It takes an enormous amount of distance and lack of compassion to watch this young man talk about his family and not be moved.

But in another way, this battle is empowering. As GDad noted over at his place Cranial Hyperossification:

Maybe I should try to enjoy being so incredibly powerful that a state legislature goes into full panic mode to stop my destructive rampage through the fabric of society. Or maybe it just makes me f^(&!ng tired that my family and my life are used as political fodder for ignorant dumb@$$3$ who beat their chests and rant on about how they need to stomp on the heads of good and honest people just to protect themselves from having to acknowledge that the world is not and never will be the way they want it to be. 

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Tim Pawlenty, a social conservative extremist, just like the rest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Minnesota Gov. and likely GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is a sensible Midwestern moderate, an old-school sort of Republican, an antithesis to the Sarah Palins of the party?

Think again.

As Pawlenty told right-wing hatemonger Bryan Fischer on Wednesday, he's not just a fiscal conservative but a social one as well. He's "a strong supporter of the family, pro-life positions, traditional marriage positions" -- in other words, he's anti-abortion and anti-gay, the proponent in Minnesota of an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, the proponent of conservative judicial activism ("strict constructionists") and the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And, he said, he would reinstate Don't Ask, Don't Tell, misleadingly claiming that "the combat commanders and the combat units" are against gays being allowed to serve, even though a huge majority not just of the American people but of the men and women in uniform supported DADT repeal, including not just Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps America's most revered current military commander (and conservative wunderkind), Gen. David Petraeus.

Sure, Pawlenty may just have been pandering to the right-wing GOP base, and appearing on right-wing shows and playing up (or exaggerating) one's conservative bona fides is de rigueur for Republicans, but there's really nothing to suggest that he isn't the sort of social conservative he claimed he is. Really, it's just that most of the media's attention has been on his similarly conservative economic views, and that he doesn't come across as an unhinged extremist on social issues the way other leading Republicans do -- the way, say, Palin and Huckabee do. And in presenting himself as a credible social conservative, he's clearly distinguishing himself from another moderate-seeming fiscal conservative, Mitt Romney, who has tried so desperately to flip-flop himself into conservatives' hearts while failing miserably to overcome his decidedly un-conservative past (health-care reform, anyone?).

However sincere he may be, it's just so transparent what Pawlenty is doing, and it's telling that he'll even pander directly to a bigot like Fischer. In today's GOP, that's just what you have to do to get anywhere, particularly at the national level, with presidential aspirations driving you ever further to the extreme right.

Biden: "There's an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Vice President Joseph Biden said in a television interview Fridaythat "there's an inevitability for a national consensus on gaymarriage."

The vice president, who backs civil unions but notsame-sex marriage, weighed in on the issue two days after PresidentObama acknowledged his position was "evolving."

"I think the country's evolving," Biden said in the interview withABC News. His comments were not the first time he has suggested thecountry would eventually accept and support gay marriage. Asked in a2007 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" if gay marriage wasinevitable, Biden replied that "it probably is."

I think Biden's right -- that same-sex marriage legalization is inevitable given the evolution of the country. I would also call this progress, as Americans and American society in general become more liberal, more accepting of difference and diversity.

Now, it's not clear what a "national consensus" would mean. Perhaps, despite his 2007 comments, such a consensus would form around civil unions but not same-sex marriage, that is, around Biden's own position. But I suspect that the country is ultimately moving towards not some separate-but-more-or-less-equal status for same-sex unions but full marriage equality, with the state (most, if not all, states, that is) recognizing both same-sex and opposite-sex marriages equally.

I would be fine with civil unions if they applied equally to same-sex and opposite-sex partners. Indeed, an argument can be made that the state should do away with "marriage" altogether, replacing it with "civil union" as the state-recognized partnership of two people. There could still be "marriage," but it would be religious, and hence private. You could get "married" by a religious official, for example, but while that religion would recognize the partnership as a "marriage" within its own code, the state would recognize it as a "civil union."

Simply, such partnerships, or civil unions, should be purely secular in nature. While the state should not tell religious institutions what to do, within certain broad parameters, religious institutions should not continue to hold such sway over society.

Anyway, while Obama's views on same-sex marriage may very well be "evolving," I don't expect him to push aggressively for the repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as I wrote yesterday, let alone for the full legalization of same-sex marriage beyond what some states have done or are doing on their own. Aside from the fact that he has been dragging his heels on gay rights the past two years, whether because of excessive caution (political calculation) or lack of principle (personal commitment), there just won't be any urgency for him to turn his attention to DOMA, not with Republicans in control in the House, with Democrats far from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and with more pressing political concerns to attend to in the lead-up to 2012.

A national consensus may very well be forming, and it may very well take the shape of support for marriage equality, but there's still a long way to go for any such consensus to be reflected politically.

Is Obama finally moving forward on gay rights?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

President Obama, although he still supports civil unions over same-sex marriage, said yesterday that he believes the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed.

"Repealing DOMA, getting ENDA [a bill to protect LGBT people from discrimination] done, those are things that should be done," Obama told The Advocate the night before signing Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal into law. "I think those are natural next steps legislatively. I'll be frank with you, I think that's not going to get done in two years. We're on a three- or four-year time frame unless there's a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus."

The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed in 1996, defines marriage as strictly heterosexual. It's currently facing multiple legal challenges, including two cases from Massachusetts in which a federal judge already ruled that part of the law is unconstitutional. Obama's Justice Department is defending DOMA. 

The Justice Department has to defend DOMA regardless of what the president's own position on the law, but what we seem to be getting here is a signal from Obama that he has a plan and will work towards full equality for homosexuals.

The problem is, there won't be "a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus," nor even a fake one. The Republican Party, individual dissenters aside, is anti-gay. And so it is highly unlikely that DOMA will be repealed anytime soon.

Still, it is noteworthy that Obama is speaking out more forcefully than usual on gay rights. He even told The Advocate that he's "wrestling" with same-sex marriage. The preference for civil unions over marriage rights is a cowardly cop-out, of course, and I've long thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt, that Obama actually supports marriage equality but just doesn't want to take that position publicly.

I just wonder if this is all just hot air for the base. After all, will Obama really push for DOMA repeal? (And, from there, for marriage equality?) Will he spend his political capital on gay rights? Sure, DADT repeal was a major victory for him, but it happened more in spite of Obama than because of him -- he never aggressively pushed for it and, of course, repeal only came after military leaders called for it and after a military study (and public opinion polls) showed overwhelming support for it. By the time DADT was repealed, it was safe to be against DADT -- and Obama knew it.

And now? Don't count on much happening. I don't want to be overly critical here, but Obama will be able to ride the wave of DADT repeal for a while, basking in its glow, and there won't be any urgency for him to turn his attention to DOMA, not with Republicans in control in the House, with Democrats far from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and with more pressing political concerns to attend to in the lead-up to 2012.

So, yes, call me a cynic.