There is absolutely no question that Biden’s response was cleared by the White House. Vice presidents are not allowed to freelance on talk shows, especially on such a sensitive issue. So Obama was sending out Biden to further mollify the gay community without having to actually take a stand himself.
It all seems a bit calculating to me…
In such a climate, the president would be asking for a headache—and possibly reignite the culture wars—if he openly embraced gay marriage. So he had Joe Biden do it on Sunday morning television instead, hoping to reap the benefits without the political pain.
The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz believes that Joe Biden’s groundbreaking endorsement of gay marriage on television Sunday morning was a completely political move, allowing Obama to keep slowly “evolving” on the issue while throwing the LGBT community (and our allies) a bone.
1equalityUSA
Last week three people responded with, “What is LGBT?” when an “It gets better” proposal went out for our organization. One of those three was my own mother-in-law, who went to our wedding. It was a valuable lesson for me. Many are not even cognizant of our struggle for equal treatment under the law. As much as I would like to think that our issues matter and are on the front burner, I was reminded how insignificant our plight is to the rest of the country. Obama is likely aware of this as well. Accept for the true-blue haters, the vociferously rabid anti-LGBT’ers, the NOM-sters, and the sexually perverse Catholic leadership, we likely would not even amount to a blip on the radar screen. I’m not sure if I should curse our enemies or thank them. I do appreciate AFER because they fight like we are right. We need to continue battling against the slanderous hate speech towards us and fight on, but it was also valuable to know that people, even in San Francisco, ask, “What is LGBT?”
1equalityUSA
The Catholic Church has been embroiled in child molestation law suits too numerous to count. Many molester-priests were given cover and moved from diocese to diocese in an effort to cover up their crimes against children. Sexual abuse was tolerated and even defended. The leadership of such an outfit as this, allowing such heinous acts against children, should be brought up on charges and jailed. These are the people that are holding up morality for the world? Tend to your own garden, men.
David Ehrenstein
You want to know what’s really “calculating”? Howard Kurtz. He’s supposed to be “News Analyst” and therefore “objective.” But the fact of the matter is his wife, Sheri Annis is a major Republican operative-cum-propaganist. This makes Howie a Stealth Propagandist– not a reporter in any way shape or form.
Marie Cohn
Kurtz is usually wrong about any topic attracting his attention. If the WH trotted out Biden to “mollify” the gays, why did it immediately retract the unfiltered crap coming out of Biden’s mouth?
cam
Actually, I’m not a Kurtz fan but he has this right. All my friends in DC immediately called each other and said “Did you see the trial balloon that the White House just sent up on gay marriage?”
They wait and if Biden doesn’t get a big nasty backlash “From people that wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway so I don’t see why he still thinks he can cort them” Then the presidents position may “Evolve” a bit more.
The dance is kind of sickening, but at this point Obama has told the DOJ to stop defending DOMA and he signed the DADT repeal which neither Romney or McCain would have, so for the gay community he is the better option by quite a bit.
Andy
Howie’s right, not usually, but this time. Today, Arne Duncan came out in support of gay marriage. This way, deluded gays can think Obama wants gay marriage while Obama can claim to the bigots that he still opposes full gay marriage.
Did Obama promote civil unions or the repeal of DOMA while he had majorities in the House and Senate? Even if he supported gay marriage now, it’s worth a whole lot less given the House will stay Republican and the Senate has a good chance of turning over to the Republicans too.
gggggb
Throwing us a bone or under the bus? Who even knows anymore?
cam
@Andy: said…
”
Even if he supported gay marriage now, it’s worth a whole lot less given the House will stay Republican and the Senate has a good chance of turning over to the Republicans too.
___________________
Considering if you take Rassmusen polling out of the mix (Which any actual statistician would) the Dems are running +5 in Congressional elections would would indicate the House going Dem and a 2 seat Dem pick-up in the Senate….I was just wondering where you were getting your information.
Or is this just GOProud wishful thinking?
Delius
Obama is such a fraud.
He lies to our community, and all these self hating gays keep supporting him.
He’s a total opportunist.
Just google “Larry Craig” and you’ll see why Obama won’t support the gay community.
No-Obot
Obama missed a perfect opportunity to put a very fine Lesbian law scholar on the US Supreme Court by the name of Kathleen Sullivan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sullivan
“Kathleen Sullivan was considered to be a potential candidate to replace David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. If she had been nominated, she would have become the first openly lesbian nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court in American history.”
Instead our inept president chooses someone like Kagan, Obama’s former Solicitor General, who has had to recuse herself dozens of times on important cases before the US Supreme Court because of conflicts of interest as the result of her working for the Obama administration’s Justice Department.
Here a very talented legal scholar, Kathleen Sullivan, was passed over for the likes of Kagan and Sotomayor. Someone who was exceedingly qualified and who could have been the first openly gay person on the court wasn’t even given due consideration. Yet women and blacks, and now a Hispanic all serve on the court. Where was our “fierce advocate” when he could have made history? Pathetic.
And please, don’t give us that bullshit about how the big bad Republican boogie men would trump everything that Obama does. Obama doesn’t even put up a fight for us — unlike President Lyndon Johnson who fought tooth and nail for the rights of African-Americans in the early to mid 1960s who said that when he pushed for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for Black people that he knew that the Democrats would lose the South for generations, but he said it was the right thing to do. Now we have the likes of Obama who shits himself when he feels even a little pressure to show an ounce of token support to another (actually, the last in America) persecuted minority voting block.
Don’t fool yourself, if Obama loses this election (and many recent polls say that it will be a squeaker) it will be because he has alienated so many people in the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Obama is all hot air with very little leadership ability.
As the old saying goes: The Republicans fear their base, while the Democrats despise their base.
…it shows, and that is why they keep losing. They never learn.
1equalityUSA
The Dems may be nervous that when LGBT does finally attain equality, many will defect over to the sleaze bag Repubs. I resent how our rights are used to coerce votes. The Repubs are too intertwined with the religious nutters to ever be trusted with power of any sort. They are short-sighted.