A few students were allowed to step to the microphone and ask questions. Which, by the way, were generally more informed and certainly more nuanced than the pros have come up with at the couple of hundred debates they've held so far. A young man asked him where he stood on gay marriage. And he said, "I'm not in favor of gay marriage but I'm in favor of a very strong civil union." Say what?
It just felt wrong. As the National Journal's most liberal senator of 2007, with a score of 95.5, it wasn't the answer I expected. I expected him to endorse a policy more along the lines of, "Ask me to the wedding, tell me where it's at." What's the point of being the most liberal if your position on equal treatment for gays is basically indistinguishable from John McCain's?
I must confess, I'm a little embarrassed that this blind-sided me like it did. I like to think I keep pretty up-to-date on where the candidates stand. I guess I had just assumed Obama was as forward-thinking and inclusive on gay marriage as he seems to be on most everything else.
I checked his website. No mention whatsoever of gay marriage. Not a peep.
In answer to the kid's question, Obama went on to say that "it's very important that the state make sure that they are not denying the same kinds of rights that have historically been denied..." Hey, Barack, if I wanted to vote for state's rights, I would have voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. The irony of the moment hit me like a ball peen hammer: Obama was arguing for state's rights as he ran for president outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, twenty-eight years after Reagan kicked off his presidential bid with a speech endorsing state's rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Reagan was giving a not-so-subtle nod to the conservative wing of the party at the time, Philadelphia, Mississippi being the town where three young civil rights workers were slain in 1964 while registering blacks to vote.
I thought, surely Obama should be toeing the party line on this one. So I checked the Democratic National Committee's official stance. To my further surprise, I discovered that they also think marriage is an issue that should be left to the states, taking no position on whether states should marry same-sex couples.
Oh, everybody's against a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Obama, Clinton, even McCain. They're lining up to vote against that one. But support gay marriage? Not so much.
I expected more from Obama. He writes that, "marriage is between a man and a woman" but he remains "open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support marriage is misguided . . . I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God."
Well, I am not impressed, Senator. You trumpet your keen judgement and how it differentiates you from your opponents. We are continuously assured that you will be right from Day One. Yet, on one of the diciest of social issues -- one that separates young from old, liberal from conservative, right from wrong -- you want to have it both ways. You believe one thing but you admit to the possibility of the other. That society and the Church may have swayed your opinion. Good thing you didn't grow up in Kansas -- I'd hate to think where you would come down on creation/evolution.
He told the West Chester University student that, "young people are way ahead of the curve on this issue and I think it's important for the rest of the country to catch up."
Just not him, evidently.
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