Obviously all of us are happy that Obama has put himself on the right side of history and morality with his endorsement of gay marriage. Some may say talk is cheap, and to an extent, they are right. Obama’s announcement brings with it no change in the legal status of same-sex relationship. Nonetheless, his announcement is significant. Talk might usually be cheap, but when the talking is done by the sitting President of the United States, it carries some weight.
Obama’s statement means that support for gay marriage is now a mainstream position. Before, a Democratic candidate might have hesitated to openly support equal rights. Now, I suspect that Democratic politicians will feel more comfortable “coming out of the closet,” so to speak, as supporters of gay marriage. Even Democrats who might privately be uncomfortable with gay marriage may be more reluctant now that support for equality is the mainstream position of their party. I think Obama has accelerated the inexorable movement of public opinion on this issue, and by doing so he has given meaningful aid to same-sex couples.
But as I think that movement is inexorable (in fact, it is the only issue I am confident liberals will win over the long-term. Protecting the working class, the environment, and ending military adventurism will be more of a struggle), I am more interested in the short term political ramifications of Obama’s move.
I don’t think this was something forced on him by Joe Biden, at least not exactly. It seems Obama was already planning his endorsement of equality, and that Joe just forced him to move it up a few days (http://www.nytimes.com/...).
If Obama was planning to endorse gay marriage during an election season, he clearly sees political advantage to doing so. I believe that Obama has supported gay marriage for a long time, but he kept his mouth shut, or said otherwise, for political reasons (http://www.tnr.com/...). If he thought supporting it openly now would help Romney, I believe he would have continued to keep his mouth shut. In truth, I don’t necessarily think his caution reflects badly on him. My hero is President Lincoln, who understood that sometimes, when you move in the right direction to quickly, all that you achieve is to empower the enemies of freedom. If you stick your neck out too far, your head is liable to get chopped off, and in the future, good men and women will be more reluctant to take a stand. Sometimes it is better to wait until you know you can win. That might seem cold and cynical, but if I had to choose between taking an idealistic stand and loosing, or winning a victory for equality through careful political calculation, I’d choose the latter.
Part of the advantage Obama gets from his announcement is obvious. Polling suggests that support for equal rights is now the plurality, or even majority, position amongst Americans (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/...). But I think there is something else to Obama’s announcement. He wants to force Romney to campaign on social issues, and his Republican allies to do the same.
I think if the election were held today, Obama would win. If the election had been held six weeks ago, however, Obama would have won by a much larger margin than if it were held today. Romney has moved up in the polls. Obviously that is because he has escaped the disastrous Republican primary season. But the Republican primary season was disastrous for Romney because he was forced to campaign on right wing pet issues rather than the economy, which is Obama’s biggest vulnerability. Romney’s base still doesn’t trust him, even though he is now the presumptive nominee. I suspect Obama sought to force him to campaign more heavily on social issues to shore up his base, and I think it will work.