At a certain point, I've just concluded that-- for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that-- I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
[...]
And what you're seeing is, I think, states working through this issue-- in fits and starts, all across the country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times. And I think that's a healthy process and a healthy debate. And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what's recognized as a marriage.
I will get to this in a minute, but first I want to map out a timeline of sorts. Obama was originally for gay marriage in 1996. Later, at the forum at the Saddleback Church in 2008, when Pastor Rick Warren asked about his stance on marriage then, he stated: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix." Soon after that, he stated that his views were"evolving," a smoke signal to people in the high places of liberal society who understood what that vague language meant. And then there was his announcement this past week.
But this announcement did not come out of the blue. Last Sunday while on Meet the Press, VP Joe Biden stated his support for same-sex marriage, putting the President in a precarious position because of his not-as-yet fully evolved view on same-sex marriage (and the fact that many saw Joe Biden serving as the exemplar of political courage). And this came just after North Carolina became the 31st state to make gay marriage (and civil unions) unconstitutional.
As evidenced by a $40,000 a person fundraiser at George Clooney's house last night, this change in public stance has no doubt helped Obama in the fundraising department (in which he still is way ahead of the ultra rich Mitt Romney).
But let's get back to his statements in the interview with ABC news.
He couched his support for same-sex marriage in the language of personal belief. But Obama obviously thinks that same-sex marriage is a positive good for everyone, not just for himself. He was trying to talk the language of universal rights, but struggling because his education taught him that any notion of natural law or natural rights is just an illusion. Like Bentham said, belief in natural rights is simply nonsense on stilts. In no way did he actually establish that same-sex marriage is a good for everyone.
Lets get to his comment about the right of the states to decide this question. If it follows that he thinks same-sex marriage is a universal good, then his supposed concern for states' rights rings hollow (especially if Hadley Arkes is right about the ground already being set, by way of Lawrence v. Texas, for the right to same-sex marriage to be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, thereby invalidating all state laws to the contrary). His support for states to decide the question means that public support for same-sex marriage will just work itself out naturally. People will someday rise to the intellectual heights of his own thought on the subject.
As Lincoln said in the House Divided Speech regarding slavery, the Union would "become all one thing or all the other." This teaching is as important today as ever.
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