A New York Times reporter said on Monday that many in the Democratic Party still don’t view Obama or Hillary Clinton as beacons of support in the fight for LGBT rights, even though both supported last week’s Supreme Court decision saying same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.
“I think there are a lot of Democrats who would say, and will say to this day, that the president and Hillary Clinton didn’t exactly show a whole lot of courage and leadership on the issue at the time,” reporter Jeremy Peters said on “Morning Joe.”
Peters’ statement came after “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough recalled Obama’s stance on the issue in 2012, when he publicly opposed the measure.
“Let’s be clear-eyed about this,” Scarborough said. “The republicans are now taking, to be honest, intellectually, Barack Obama’s position in 2012, in his last presidential campaign until Joe Biden embarrassed him and made him come out.”
Until 2012, Obama’s views on gay marriage had been in a constant state of change, and not necessarily in favor of marriage equality. He supported civil unions, but believed that marriage should be left to churches rather than governments.
In 2008, the president said, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”
Then, on May 6, 2012, Joe Biden, in a “Meet the Press” talk, said he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage, which led to a scramble within the White House to clarify that his statement was not separate from the president’s, who at that time was still a supporter of civil unions.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that,” Biden said.
This view was quite different from Obama’s. A few days after Biden’s declaration, however, Obama’s stance changed.
“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,” said Obama on May 9, 2012.
Scarborough and Peters seem to believe that Obama’s changing stance on the issue could impact his own reputation within the Democratic Party, as well as Clinton’s, as that of marriage equality’s biggest defender.
