Obama’s conversion to gay marriage will only help him if it’s principled
NEWSWEEK’S latest cover proclaims “The First Gay President,” with a picture of President Barack Obama wearing a rainbow halo. Obama’s support for gay marriage is a first for a sitting president, a fact his allies in the press have lauded for the past week. David Cameron, who’s championed marriage without receiving similar plaudits, could only look on and wonder how Obama had done it.
The initial response from some Republicans was cynical – that it was another Democratic ploy to shift the narrative from the economy to social issues, another distraction in the mould of the GOP’s alleged “War on Women.” It was nothing of the sort. The president claimed he took the position irrespective of statements made by his vice president and secretary of education. In truth, it was a discussion the president was ill-prepared for, one he would have preferred to discuss after his re-election. The president will now hope that his position requires no further clarification. This is unlikely.
Rather than plague Mitt Romney with a burdensome, unsympathetic fight on social issues, the Republicans have largely stayed silent. Using the issue cynically to mobilise the base would in any case likely backfire – as pollster Jan van Lohuizen highlighted earlier this week. Although there are differences between the states, most polls show that the national mood on gay marriage has changed, with a plurality now in support. And yet a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 67 per cent felt the president made his announcement for “mostly political reasons.” Romney will want to keep it that way. In an economy election year, he will be reticent to move off message and discuss anything but jobs.
Lost among all the plaudits was the fact that Obama’s stance on the issue is laissez faire; a personal opinion backed by rhetoric rather than legislation. For a Democrat, it is remarkable that Obama stipulated that the matter should be decided by the states, especially when his administration and party have a zest for federal solutions for almost every other public policy matter. How can the federal government legislate a “right” to health care, but delegate to states whether gay couples have a “right” to marry? His defenders claim that marriage has always been a matter for the states, and yet the Supreme Court’s ruling in Love vs. Virginia (1967) and Bill Clinton’s signature on the Defence of Marriage Act suggest otherwise. The question is now in what mould the Democrats will translate Obama’s stance on gay marriage into the party’s 2012 platform.
Momentous – or contentious – announcements will fail electorally if they are seen as politically expedient rather than principled. In the short term, the president’s stance has played well, but raised the prospect of people asking further down the line, “what’s next”? His supporters will demand action.
Ewan Watt is a Washington DC-based consultant. You can follow him on @ewancwatt