Gay marriage: Will Obama’s support turn the tide?

The president's statement—“I think same-sex couples should be able to get married”—is an historic moment for gay civil rights.

There’s no going back now, said Richard Socarides in NewYorker.com. The struggle for gay civil rights in America may still have a few reels to run, but President Obama’s simple statement last week to ABC News—“I think same-sex couples should be able to get married”—will surely be remembered as “an important symbolic and substantive turning point” in the long struggle for equality—and the moment when full marriage rights for all citizens finally became inevitable. Public opinion has been rapidly shifting in favor of gay marriage, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post, but this was still a “bold political gambit” for Obama in an election year. It may cost him the votes of some independents, while re-energizing the social conservative base behind Republican Mitt Romney. Ultimately, though, the “hope and change” president had no choice but to hop off the fence. Gay marriage is a “national issue involving the civil rights of millions of Americans,” and the president’s support represents “a historic advance in the nation’s long march toward equality and justice.”

Gay marriage supporters “shouldn’t congratulate themselves” just yet, said Rich Lowry in NationalReview.com. This was also a banner week for opponents of gay marriage, who saw 61 percent of voters in North Carolina approve a ballot initiative restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. In so doing, North Carolina joined a list of 30 other states that have banned gay marriage. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment, and gun control? “History is littered with the wreckage of causes pronounced inevitable by all right-thinking people.” Gay marriage may have the support of the White House, said USA Today in an editorial, “but the idea has yet to catch on where it matters most: with voters.” Ultimately, this issue is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court—probably when taking on a federal court ruling that California’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. Then “the opinions that matter most will be those of the nine justices”—not the voters’ and not Obama’s.

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