To my utter shock, surprise and awe, I just learned from the New York Times that politics just might have been behind President Obama’s sudden turnaround on gay marriage. (Gasp!)
And naturally, pundits on both “sides” of this distraction will be analyzing it in terms of whether people support or oppose gay marriage. In my opinion, gay marriage is nowhere near the issue in voters minds as much as is Obama’s shameless opportunism.
Holly Wright, 67, an independent from Smithfield, Va., who works in the food industry, said she believed that Mr. Obama had concluded that more Americans approved of same-sex marriage. “He believes it will help him win the election,” she said. “In other words, say what the majority of the people want to hear.”
The survey results made it clear that the president was wading into a divisive area of American life, one that may not top the nation’s priority list but still has the potential to hurt him at the margins in elections in November. About 4 in 10, or 38 percent, of Americans support same-sex marriage, while 24 percent favor civil unions short of formal marriage. Thirty-three percent oppose any form of legal recognition. When civil unions are eliminated as an option, opposition to same-sex marriage rises to 51 percent, compared with 42 percent support.
The poll showed that relatively few voters consider same-sex marriage their top issue amid continued economic uncertainty, and more than half said it would make no difference in their choice for president. But among those who said Mr. Obama’s position would influence their vote, more said they would be less likely to vote for him as a result; in a close race, even a small shift in swing states could be costly.
A lot of people support gay marriage and a lot of people oppose it. But nationally, it does not loom large as issues go. And they don’t have to be supporters or opponents to know opportunism when they see it.
When the dust settles, I think that in selecting a president, what will more than the actual merits of gay marriage is the calculating, finger-to-the-wind attitude of Barack Obama.
This could cost him more than it gets him.
Comments
3 responses to “Politics? No way!”
More to the point, a lot of people are dismayed that the President seems to think gay marriage IS such an important issue. The nation is beset by large, serious problems. Whether or not gay men and lesbians can hold weddings is not one of those problems. He’s not just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, he’s arguing about how to upholster them.
YOu wish.
We’ll see in a few months.
@Jennifer – good luck. But he DID do it as a political move – I suspect he doesn’t give a damn about gays one way or the other. Btw, I do support gay marriage. Or at least don’t oppose it – I don’t think the state(s) should be in the market of approving/disapproving any sort of marriage at all.
(Yeah, damned libertarians.)