Fourwords. "Obama Supports Marriage Equality". So what?

As I'm sure you all know by now, Barack Obama spoke out in favour of same-sex marriage on the 9th May 2012, so I'm not going to talk about that as I'm sure you've all had it rammed down your throats on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr and more. In fact, in the hours following Obama's announcement, 4 hashtags relating to him and/or gay marriage appeared in the top 10 Worldwide trends on Twitter. The news shot around the world almost instantly, making headlines in every language over the week to come. It's not often news stories about America's internal affairs are reported on foreign news channels, in foreign newspapers and on foreign radio stations. The story's even been to the International Space Station. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 3 weeks you can't be excused for not knowing!

Needless to say, his opponents such as Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (the AFA channel) and other right-wing groups believed that the seal was stamped on the damnation of America. The Westboro Baptist Church made some noise on their blog saying that legalizing same-sex marriage "will bring the second coming of Christ and final destruction" of America... Just the same way that Christ came back and destroyed Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden after they did it. Or do they even know those countries exist? Supporters and opponents alike said he flip flopped on the issue.

"Forward." Obama's 2012 campaign slogan (S)

But what has Obama's support for marriage equality changed? Although it's a big boost for everyone in the LGBT community, some people are saying he only said it to earn the gay vote. I'd just like to say that I think this hypothesis is ridiculous. It statistically doesn't even make any sense. As we all know, the gay population is estimated at around 3 in 10. The vast majority of those people would vote for the Democrats anyway. The only people Obama might win over would be the Log Cabin Republicans, but do they really have much weight in a vote? In 2010, 31% of gay voters voted Republican in House races (from blogcabin.net) but what percentage of the active voting population is that? 31% of 10%? Not very influential when it comes to electing a President.

I personally believe that Obama has evolved on the issue of same-sex marriage as he said so himself. I'm not the kind of person who listens to politicians and swallows every word of what they say, I just think that in this case the statement Obama made is true. Looking back over his presidency and even his days pre-White House, his views have evolved a lot. He has moved Forward.

Here's an interview with Obama from 2008...

Then in December 2010, Obama said he had been "evolving on the issue" and that he was "struggling with it". It was seen by many as support for marriage equality, even though he never explicitly said it. Nonetheless, I'm sure we all agree it's a big difference in comparison to what he said just 2 years before.

We all knew that it was only going to be a matter of time before he would finally come out and say he supports full marriage equality. Civil partnerships, hospital visitation rights, calling DOMA unconstitutional, the repeal of DADT... It was inevitably the next step.

The Log Cabin Republicans did criticize Obama saying that he spoke out too late to influence the vote on Amendment 1 in North Carolina which closed just 24 hours before his statement and resulted in a ban on same-sex marriage and civil partnerships. But to those people I say this; "better late than never", because "never" is all we could expect from any previous US President and "never" is all we got.