Vice President Biden kinda-sorta embraced gay marriage during an interview with David Gregory yesterday – which the administration promptly downplayed – and this morning Education Secretary Arne Duncan came out in favor of same-sex marriage on MSNBC (via Buzzfeed):
The Obama administration tiptoed even closer to supporting gay marriage today, with a second member of the Cabinet coming out flatly in support of treating same-sex couples the same as couples of opposite sexes.
TIME’s Mark Halperin asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today whether he believes “that same-sex men and women should be able to get legally married in the United States?”
“Yes, I do,” Duncan replied.
This certainly gives the impression the administration is relaxing its gay marriage stance. But is it smart or not? Best case scenario for the Obama campaign is if gay marriage supporters take these comments as a winking endorsement from the White House, and leave it at that. It’s a bit risky at this point for the president to personally come out in favor of gay marriage, particularly when many black Democratic voters adamantly oppose it. But as we know, Obama would obviously have more “flexibility” –in this area and others – if he’s reelected. And he likely hopes that message has been subtly transmitted to gay rights advocates through Biden’s remarks.
The political downside of Biden and Duncan voicing their support for gay marriage is that there will no doubt be a frantic rush to parse out whether Obama has personally “evolved” any further on the issue. Stay tuned for Jay Carney fielding gay marriage questions at the briefing. Obama will almost certainly try to avoid taking a firm stance on this. But if frustrated gay marriage advocates get tired of letting him dance around the issue, that could cause problems for the president.
One can't read Obama's mind, and it probably doesn't matter. Politicians' deeds count; their beliefs, on the other hand, give way to their need for votes. Nevertheless, Obama grew up in Indonesia, later was friends with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, and subsequently went to Reverend Wright's church. Muslims, Marxists, and fundamentalist Christians all have faith, and all are anti-gay. nAt this point in history, it would be politically useful for Obama to support gay marriage. His cabinet already does. He seems to be abandoning his inner anti-gay views for the sake of politics, and will finally come out and say he supports gay marriage, despite what his personal reactions may be.
As we know (because he accidentally told us), after the election Obama will have a lot more "flexibility" on certain controversial issues. Gay marriage, anti-missile defense, deficit spending, you name it. As for Israel, they better look out; that "flexibility" may really hit home in the world's freest and most hated democracy.
This new "controversy" reminds me of the "war on women" scripted rhetoric used to paint conservatives as anti-gay, anti-women. Expect to see more false narratives all summer.
Ms. Goodman's point about Obama's support for gay marriage being risky is valid — but I would argue that it is more risky with Hispanic voters (particularly recent immigrants) than with Black voters because the latter will vote for him because he is Black. Hispanics won't — there is a great deal of racial hatred between the two groups — and the Hispanic machismo culture is even more anti-gay than the Black culture. n nThe Black culture has always recognized strong women and female advancement — for every Black male in college today, there are *TWO* Black women, and it is the women who hold together Black families, who are the cornerstone of the Black churches. n nThis is not true of Hispanic culture. There, it is "girls", not "young women" and they are expected to be sexually attractive. Picture the African-American woman in her early 20's. Then picture the Mexican-American, Cuban-American, Central America-American woman in her early 20's — she will not be overweight, she will have fancy hair, fancy clothes, fancy fingernails, fancy makeup and will be quietly on some guy's arm in what is a far more "traditional" male/female relationship. n nAnd the Hispanic male — "Bullfighting" — need I say more? There is far more machismo there than in the Black culture, traditional male leadership, etc, etc, etc — it may change over time but amongst the recent immigrants there is a very strong culture of Husband, Wife, Children and "Father Knows Best" — all of which is going to be even more opposed to gay marriage than the Black culture.