Obama’s gay supporters — led by entertainment titan David Geffen — have urged him to back gay marriage, as have a roster of liberal Hollywood celebrities, from Jane Lynch to Ellen DeGeneres. But Obama has been cautious, with Democratic operatives admitting the issue could provoke a backlash among independents and even church-going blacks and Hispanics. – President Obama’s gay marriage problem
Earth to “gay community,” Pres. Obama doesn’t lead, he follows polls, trends and voting blocks. So, he likely won’t have any trouble at tonight’s fundraiser, even if New York actually votes on marriage equality today and passes it.
Others, though opposed to gay marriage, said they would not support even bringing the bill up for a vote without stronger religious protections than Gov. Cuomo included in his legislation.
The language would ensure that religious groups cannot be sued if they refuse to cater to gay couples, sources said.
It would also block the state from penalizing, discriminating against or denying benefits to religious groups by stripping them of their tax-exempt status or their property tax breaks, they said.
Out of the mouth of Karl Rove slips a bit of truth: Even a small drop in the share of black voters would wipe out his winning margin in North Carolina.
Nate Silver did a post in April on opponents of marriage equality being in the minority. It didn’t, however, address religious communities like African Americans and Hispanics, which even if a minority is against marriage equality, they still have the power to tilt a state away from Pres. Obama in 2012.
Out of New York’s battle:
The event also drew support from Bishop Harry Jackson, the senior pastor at Hope Christian Church in Maryland. Jackson has emerged as the leading African-American voice opposing gay marriage.
“What we have today is a group of people trying to hitchhike on or highjack or take the legacy of the real civil rights movement and make it their own,” Jackson said. “Most African Americans are incensed by this; thus we find in every state a huge majority of African-American voters have voted against same-sex marriage.”
Barack Obama is thinking of his own interests first. The LGBT community simply doesn’t matter to him as much as African American and even Hispanic religious voters, with Obama reelect calculating these two necessary blocks aren’t ready to support gay marriage.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand or why the LGBT community continues a campaign to persuade Pres. Obama, which will never happen.
“Evolving” on gay marriage is code meant to pacify another zombie voter group who thinks Pres. Obama is their only option.
It brings me to Jon Huntsman’s declaration that’s similar to Obama’s, if more openly honest. He adamantly says redefining marriage is a non-starter, which I think is ridiculous, but we’ll leave that alone, as Obama has the same stance, he’s just more coy about how he says it, stringing the LGBT community along through his “evolving” charade.
Huntsman also says there hasn’t been enough movement on equality, meaning all the legal hurdles put in place to deny health care sharing, death benefits, etc.
If the LGBT community’s political savvy would evolve beyond their singleminded campaign to arm twist Pres. Obama to “evolve already,” which isn’t going to happen, they’d be asking the Huntsman campaign (or any other presidential candidate they could find to build critical mass) for a sit down with him to talk about their issues, asking the candidate to take an equality pledge up as far as possible, even if today it stops short of marriage equality on the national level.
Yes, this sucks. But it’s embarrassing to see the LGBT community running into immovable political walls continually, because they won’t accept or acknowledge Pres. Obama’s self motivation.
Civil union is not marriage, but Pres. Obama isn’t going to change his stance and it’s because his reelection team has calculated that losing African American and Hispanic religious voters in 2012 could cost Obama reelection.
It has absolutely nothing to do with “evolving.”
The issue is personal to the LGBT community, but to Pres. Obama it’s a practical political calculation.
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