Same-Sex Marriage General Discussion Thread

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Very sad this morning for my two Aunts who live in NC. They retired down there and have been the stable relationship I have tried to model my marriage of 19 years on. THey have been with each other since 1970. Very disappointing morning indeed.
 
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on the NPR hourly news blip, they just said Obama said, 'Gay marriage should be legal." I am sure there will be video and audio of this.

I understand the principle of being on the 'right side of history".

I also understand how elections are won and lost. I think we all would have been better served if everyone just let this evolution complete itself about 5-6 months from now.
 
there is a link to the video, and prepared statement here

Obama declares support for gay marriage - Yahoo! News


Obama has always had my respect, this was not a slip, this is a well thought out, well reasoned statement. It reflects my personal feelings and beliefs.

But, being a pragmatist, I am concerned that with the very few swing vote states in this election,
most all being in places where this moral stand will push more people opposed to it to get out and vote.

I hope I am wrong.




(Will one apathetic, beer drinking regular from Pa, put down the joystick and actually register to vote now? and perhaps even exercise it? )
 
It's hard to see anything in an election year as not politically motivated, but knowing he will very likely lose votes with this (whereas I don't know that anyone for SSM would vote for the other guy if Obama stayed mum), it feels more like he's saying "you know what, I don't care if I lose some votes - this is the right thing to do."

Yeah, he could have said something sooner, and yeah, you could argue it's just political waffling, but it doesn't make it any less important.
 
:up:

To quote from Harry Potter, there comes a time when you have to choose between what is right and what is easy.

I don't think that this will cost Obama the election - if he loses, it will be for economic reasons.
 
My general opinion is that the loss in votes from this are a drop in the ocean compared to the tumultuous waves of the economy. And there's greater upside from nailing down base enthusiasm.

This certainly guarantees nothing in the short term, but it does ensure we will never see another major Democratic presidential candidate opposed to marriage equality.
 
Yeah, he could have said something sooner, and yeah, you could argue it's just political waffling, but it doesn't make it any less important.


yeah, he could have said something later, if Biden did not blow this thing wide open

did Biden lose this election, more voters in MA, NY and CA don't matter at all, those starts were tied up

all Biden had to say was, "States are deciding this for themselves, that is how this is now."
 
:up:

To quote from Harry Potter, there comes a time when you have to choose between what is right and what is easy.

I don't think that this will cost Obama the election - if he loses, it will be for economic reasons.


It has been right to say this for at least 20 years, if not before then.
 
It has been right to say this for at least 20 years, if not before then.

Absolutely.

I think that Obama is a political animal. If he thought that this would cost him the election, he wouldn't have done it. Call me cynical.

The reason that I don't think this is a big deal is that in today's troubled economic times, both domestically and globally, people are more concerned about their jobs, their salaries, their purchasing power, kids' education costs and so on than social issues like gay marriage. Those for whom gay marriage is at the top of their priority list would NEVER have voted for Obama because I would bet the majority of them already think the supports it as it is. And they have a candidate perfectly willing to pander to them on the other side of the aisle.
 
It looks like there's a small majority supporting this at the moment (see: Half of Americans Support Gay Marriage ), but it's only barely a majority. Plus the support is slightly down from last year.

More important is the breakdown of the support. According to this article First Read - Is Obama's gay marriage stance all about suburban voters? some of the most important groups for Obama's re-election are still split on it.

What I don't get is why does living in the suburbs matter so much?

Those groups are split, yes, but the support is still increasing within them. As long as there's any sort of an uptick in those numbers, it gives me hope. Though the overall number going from 53% down to 50% is odd.

Course, also keeping in mind here that that's just basing the statistics off those who actually responded to the poll. What the millions who didn't respond think, we don't know.

What doesn't make sense is that it's not like SSM was legal or pending legality. It was never legal, it's legality isn't an issue.

Good point. But hey, can't look for logic in an illogical situation.

This amendment absolutely proves one of the main contentions in the Prop 8 brief -- that those against SSM are motivated by animus towards a long despised minority.

Oh, absolutely. You could throw every last sane, logical, reasonable pro-gay argument at them and they won't care. They just don't like gay people for some bizarre reason and will always see them as some sort of "threat" to...something. They're just cruel, prejudiced people, plain and simple.

And on that note, here's hoping people brush off those idiots in the One Million "Moms" thing again.

Very sad this morning for my two Aunts who live in NC. They retired down there and have been the stable relationship I have tried to model my marriage of 19 years on. THey have been with each other since 1970. Very disappointing morning indeed.

I'm sorry for them :hug:.

1970? Wow. It's like they seem to care about and love each other and want to be committed to each other and stuff! Shocking, huh?

:up: to Cori's post, too. Good to hear Obama's stance made loud and clear.
 
and again WA was never in doubt, I could list a few more.

FL, VA, NC, OH, PA, MO states like these are where this is a net lost at election time.

Opposition to same sex marriage also generally tracks support for conservative policies in general. I am unpersuaded that a meaningful/substantial volume of single-issue voters exist for Obama to lose.

matt blaze ‏ @mattblaze

The people unhappy about the president's gay marriage position can take some comfort in the fact that it no longer involves evolution.
 
President Obama has given an interview to ABC, he is supporting gay marriage. I see that already posted here. So good for him for doing so in spite of what it might cost him. I admire that.
 
Absolutely.

I think that Obama is a political animal. If he thought that this would cost him the election, he wouldn't have done it. Call me cynical.

I do agree his team is not stupid, there has been something I have been considering the last couple of days.

I still believe people that went to the polls in 2000 and voted for Nader put Bush/ Cheney in office. Not only in FL, but NH too.

I have had some say to me, I don;t care. I didn't want Gore.
Jesus, they were at the polls, just a few Gore votes would have saved us from the mess in Iraq and those huge tax giveaways to the richest and, Alito on the Supreme Court.
Do they really think their vote went to the best choice on the ballot.


With all that said, most believe the Libertarian votes have always come at the expense of the GOP, these voters want less Government, and would have voted GOP.

Well 2012, the Libertarian vote is passionate, loud and vocal. Mostly young.
Their nominee that will be on all 50 states is a Gov Johnson from NM.
His platform, 1. end the drug war, legalize (some) drugs. 2. pro gay marriage, 3. cut government spending for old folks

His V P is retired Judge Gray, he lives in my city and has been a crusader for repealing drug laws

My guess is that the GOP will try and get these guys in the debates, they are not slouches, they will siphon off many young voters from Obama

NM easily could go Romney. and with young voters peel off, some more states could flip to GOP, just like in 2000.



Therefore, the pro gay marriage, could be a strategy for Obama/ Biden to shore up youth vote, firewall against Libertarian ticket, just some thoughts.
 
He said quite a while back that he'd rather be a good one term President than a mediocre two term President. So maybe he thought that not openly supporting gay marriage now would be mediocre. I don't know, I'm not in his head.

Of course Biden backed him into a corner, if that's the right way to say it. I wonder if he was thinking "damn I really should have picked Hillary for VP".
 
Opposition to same sex marriage also generally tracks support for conservative policies in general. I am unpersuaded that a meaningful/substantial volume of single-issue voters exist for Obama to lose.

really? NC is a toss up state, most polls show Obama with a 2 point lead.

last night NC went 22% against any gay rights, very disappointing

NC will be demonized in the coming months, these people will get defensive, just like the people in AZ did about there immigration law,

I am not saying the 61 - 39 vote last night will be the same in Nov

but if it moves 3, 4 or 5 points, not a big stretch, Obama loses
 
Romney winning the 2012 election would be a disaster for LBGT rights, starting with the fact that this would probably result in Antonin Scalia being to the left of the median Supreme Court justice. Particularly since Obama has done pretty much all that is within his power to advance marriage equality in policy terms, if supporting same-sex marriage would make a Romney victory more likely, his unwillingness to openly support same-sex marriage is defensible (like LBJ's nominal pre-1957 opposition to civil rights).

But I don't think there's any reason to believe that Obama doing the right thing today will help Romney in November. It's important to remember that Obama and Romney were substantially different on gay and lesbian rights before this afternoon. To believe that Romney will benefit significantly from Obama's embrace of same-sex marriage rights, you would have to believe that there's a group of voters who 1) care enough about same-sex marriage to make it their top priority in a federal election, but 2) are willing to ignore Obama's pro-LBGT rights record as long as he doesn't nominally support same-sex marriage. The number of people who fit into this class is too trivial to be worth worrying about. It's likely that some-risk adverse advisers cited the argument that same-sex marriage cost John Kerry the election in 2004. But there's no evidence that this is true. Given that same-sex marriage is significantly more popular now than it was eight years ago, it's even more unlikely that same-sex marriage would damage Obama now.

Obama embracing same-sex marriage was the right thing to do, and there's no reason to believe that it will be politically damaging. Presidential elections generally don't turn on social issues and it's hard to imagine that 2012 will be an exception (even if we assume that Obama's position is a net negative, which is possible but hardly self-evident).

People I like because they agree with whatever my position was

edited to add

deep it sounds like you've achieved a second-order level of abstraction, which is getting a bit wispy (it's not the issue, it's the backlash to the issue). From my quoted article is a link to this article:

The (logical) conclusion is that “moral values” and the gay marriage backlash played a key role in Bush’s victory.

Political scientists believe the exact opposite. In an article by Ansolabehere and Stewart III, appropriately titled, Moral values and the gay-marriage backlash did not help Bush, they argue that, the “Marriage referenda mobilized voters on both sides, not just the conservatives, and the net result may have been to John Kerry’s benefit.” Here are the facts from Ansolabehere and Stewart III:
 
Also, Joe Biden gets hung out to dry a little, here. He's now more conservative than the President! heh.
 
Here's another notch for Jon Stewart's list of examples of hypocrisy amongst conservatives.

"A war on women??? Ho ho, what a preposterous thing to suggest! A war. Pfft!"

"OBAMA HAS DECLARED WAR ON MARRIAGE!"

Get bent, you turkeys.
 
This is a major turning point in the history of American civil rights," said New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. "No American president has ever supported a major expansion of civil rights that has not ultimately been adopted by the American people - and I have no doubt that this will be no exception. The march of freedom that has sustained our country since the Revolution of 1776 continues, and no matter what setbacks may occur in a given state, freedom will triumph over fear and equality will prevail over exclusion. Today's announcement is a testament to the President's convictions, and it builds on the courageous stands that so many Americans have taken over the years on behalf of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, stretching back to the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village."
 
yeah, he could have said something later, if Biden did not blow this thing wide open.



you think? or was it all just more chess playing?

i have no idea.

it's nice. i'm glad he did this. as i just read somewhere, it's poetic that the first black president becomes the Abraham Lincoln of gay rights.

i think this is red meat for both the bases, however, in the places where it could really affect GOP turnout will likely be in states Obama was already going to lose. it won't change anyone's mind about Obama, it just inspires people for whom this issue is important to come out and vote. if NC and VA are close again, perhaps it is the difference. but this is also months in advance of
 
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