Obama Backs Gay Marriage

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that same sex couples should be able to marry.”

According to Obama his views on gay marriage have been ‘evolving’ overtime and yesterday they reached an end-point. Obama finally came round to backing gay marriage, his vice-president, Joe Biden, had already declared his support for same-sex marriage over the weekend. Obama is the first sitting US president to declare his support for marriage equality in the United States, Liberal commentator (and lesbian) Rachel Maddow said it was the “icing on the cake” as Obama’s record on gay rights have been very good. He has constantly supported the ending of anti-gay measures and safe guarding the rights of gay people.

Obama has placed himself on the right side of history, since 2004 (when Massachusetts became the first state to legalise same-sex marriage) support for same-sex marriage has risen significantly. In 2004 around 30% were for gay marriage and 60% were against it, a recent poll shows that now 50% of Americans support gay marriage whereas 48% are against it. This has been a colossal victory for the gay rights movement and over the next few years it will only go up. Personally I think it was very courageous of Obama to declare his support for gay marriage considering that it is an election year and there is still a large proportion of the American population that vehemently detest the idea of gay marriage, but in reality these people are almost all in the religious right who wouldn’t have voted for Obama anyway. So no big loss.

On the other side Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential hopeful has promised to introduce a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage across the country, including in states that have already passed it. Romney has put himself fully on the wrong side of history. 

Obama on ABC revealing his support for gay marriage