Obama agrees that same-sex couples cannot get married!

[Scanner]

mindyrbusiness:"Scanner no disrespect meant but you know nothing of what you are talking about."

With all due respect myb the evidence speaks otherwise as you make this claim after a lengthy refutation of your previous post and then fail to address a single argument made in it, preferring instead to change topics to anal sex. Whatever, here is my rebuttal to your latest strawman.

"So, in the grand scheme of things, using the guise of diversity and tolerance, the activists want the other 96% of us to be tolerant of predatory anal sex as if it is no different than heterosexual sex. "

I take specific issue with the use 'predatory' in the description above. I believe the state has no interest in what consenting adults do in their bedrooms (anal sex is not a purely homosexual activity, and is practiced by far more heater couples than homosexual). Nobody (certainly not me) defends sex with minors as anything other than a crime, whether Herero or Homo. So let's confine our disagreement to anal sex between consenting adults (as there are already laws against sex with non-consenting or non-adults).

"Experts say girls and young women like Carry are often persuaded to try such sexual behavior [anal sex] for the wrong reasons -- to please a partner, to have sex without the risk of pregnancy or to preserve their virginity. But many don't understand the health consequences…"They don't think you can get a disease from it because you're not having intercourse.""

If an adult engages in a risky activity of their own free will out of ignorance, that isn't an argument against gay marriage, it is an argument for better sex education.

"So if you want to be tolerant and embrace all this legally protected diversity keep in mind you must also embrace sodomy, pedophilia, anal STD's, and higher than average mortality rates, for homosexuals and heterosexuals who buy into the myth that anal sex has few health risks."

A version (and not a very good one) of the 'slippery slope' argument. Endorsing gay marriage does not equal an endorsement of pedophilia, anal STDs, or high mortality rates.

- Given that children cannot give legal consent to sex there is no risk of pedophilia suddenly becoming legal.

- Anal STDs are definitely a risk with anal sex. Just as we promote the use of seat belts when driving (an activity with an astronomically higher risk than sex of any kind), we should promote condoms as a method of disease prevention.

"If we're really going to love people, we have to have the courage to step up and tell them the truth so it does not cost them their lives"

Agreed. I support comprehensive sex education for teens about the risks of anal sex and other sexual activities. I also support the provision of condoms and birth control as a direct and effective means of reducing abortions (fewer unwanted pregnancies = fewer abortions).

As a conservative I know that man's nature is not mutable, we are creatures of desire, and rather than attempting to prohibit our desires (as Liberals would), I prefer to manage them prudently, by encouraging responsibility, self control, and education.

[Ogopogo]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/11/barac ... z1uakplzgs

May 11, 2012

Barack Buchanan and the gay left
Published: 3:26 PM 05/11/2012
By Bruce Carroll
Creator, GayPatriot.org

Barack Obama Comes OutObama Becomes First Prez To Affirm Support For Gay Marriage. Read Why! now.msn.com

The gay community had a collective burst of tears this week as President Obama announced his personal support for same-sex marriages. You could almost hear Zombie Liberace coming out of the ground and strumming his gold piano in flamboyant celebration.

This is one of my favorite insta-gushes from a liberal lesbian activist in New York:

Where were you when you first heard?

I was in front of Lincoln Center (I’m in New York City this week for a meeting with other LGBT civil rights attorneys from across the country) when NCLR Deputy Director Arcelia Hurtado screamed, “He did it!”

I turned around and said, “What?” To which she replied, “Obama came out in support of marriage!” We both screamed and hugged, teary eyed. The New Yorkers walking past us didn’t care. But we knew that this was a historic and indelible moment.


Really? I don’t recall the same amount of joy coming from the gay leftist ideologues when Vice President Dick Cheney became the first major national political figure to announce his support of gay marriage back in 2009.

I’m sure it has nothing to do with Cheney being a Republican and Obama being a Democrat. Nah, that would be too cynical. In my experience this is a typical reaction from left-wing gays and lesbians. They want to be liked, accepted, adored and fawned over. This week, President Obama gave them an important moment of self-adoration.

After the initial glow, however, those of us who look at life more critically and through the prism of reality like, for example, the law and the U.S. Constitution, found Obama’s announcement to be anything but historic. All he did was state his personal perspective on a social matter. Did he say he was going to ask Congress to repeal the “Defense of Marriage Act” signed by President Clinton? Nope. Did he urge all 50 governors to move toward same-sex marriage recognition in their state? Nope. Did he say he would back efforts for a gay marriage plank in the DNC platform at the Democratic Convention. Nope.

Some less partisan, more objective political types started to smell a rat. This now widely-quoted Gawker piece is probably the best critique coming from the left.

[B]efore Roe v. Wade, abortion was a state-by-state issue, too. So was slavery. There are 44 states in which gay men and women are currently barred from marrying one another. Obama’s position is that, while he would have voted the other way, those 44 states are perfectly within their rights to arbitrarily restrict the access of certain individuals to marriage rights based solely on their sexual orientation.

That is a half-assed, cowardly cop-out.

So what really happened this week? It appears by all accounts that gay activists, who have been urging the nation to give them their “civil rights,” have traded in that fight for mere acceptance by a sitting president. How medieval. It is though King Barack looked out among his gay peons and said, “Yes, I love you now.”
Ads by Google

Finally, the most stunning part of Obama’s interview with Robin Roberts was his sudden conversion to a 10th Amendment supporter. “Leave it up to the states,” he said. Well, that’s not what gay activists have been saying since Clinton signed DOMA. They’ve had to fight at the state level, but they’ve been pushing for a federal civil rights solution. Obama cut them off at the knees for the sake of his gay campaign fundraising bundlers. I guess civil rights do have a price after all.

What Ms. Roberts didn’t ask Obama was if he felt states’ rights extended to other matters like Obamacare or abortion, for example. What makes healthcare more important than gay marriage? Too bad we don’t have an aggressive mainstream media to ask these important, substantive questions to our elected officials.

We have been told since 2004 how brilliant and intellectual Barack Obama is and that he was a “constitutional scholar,” whatever that means. Well, let’s close by imaging that Obama’s words were uttered by another Democratic president in the year 1860. I’ve replaced “gay marriage” with “abolishing slavery” to illustrate my point:

At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that — for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that — I support abolishing slavery. Now — I have to tell you that part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn’t want to nationalize the issue. There’s a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized.

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 abolishing slavery.

I wonder if our new president will now be known as Barack Hussein Buchanan? The gay activists miss this hypocrisy. They will send money and vote for Obama in the same way they still fawn over Bill Clinton, who stabbed gays in the back during his time in office. The most important thing for gay ideologues in America is not earning the respect of their fellow Americans. It is being patted on the head and told they are loved by their Democratic president.

And I am called self-loathing?

Bruce Carroll is the creator of the gay conservative website GayPatriot.org and is a board member of the gay conservative group GOProud.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/11/barac ... z1uc44Swkh

[Ogopogo]

http://islamonline.com/news/articles/2/ ... slims.html

Obama Gay Marriage Irks US World Muslims
Published: 11/05/2012 08:18:12 PM GMT
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FREDERICK, Maryland - US President Barack Obama's surprise backing of same-sex marriage has sparked criticism from American and world Muslims alike, saying the practice contradicts with all religions. As Muslims, we are ag (more)

FREDERICK, Maryland - US President Barack Obama's surprise backing of same-sex marriage has sparked criticism from American and world Muslims alike, saying the practice contradicts with all religions.

"As Muslims, we are against gay marriage," Dr. Syed Haque, president of the Frederick County Muslim Council, told Frederick News Post on Friday, May 11.

President Barack Obama sparked debates yesterday after he reiterated support for same-sex marriage.

Marriage in Islam

Gay Marriage: Islamic View

Dealing with Homosexuality (Special Page)How Islam Views Homosexuality

Obama, who ended the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prevented gays from serving openly in the US military, is the first US president to publicly endorse same-sex marriage.

He argued that his support for gay marriage evolved after talking with his two daughters, who had friends who had same-sex parents.

Obama's position came days after his vice-president Joe Biden said that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriages.

His remarks also came after Colorado rejected a bill to allow same-sex marriages in the state.

His remarks sparked anger from Christian groups and Republican rivals.

In the US, 31 states have passed constitutional amendments or legislation against same-sex marriage.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said that more than 39 percent of Americans believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry legally.

Another 23.5 percent said that such couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry, while nearly 27 percent opposed marriage or civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.

World Muslims

Reaction from the world Muslims was cautious and somewhat wary to Obama's move.

"This is unacceptable, because it is against religion, traditions and against God," Shady Azer, an engineer in Cairo, told CBC on Friday.

"God created Adam and Eve. He didn't create two Adams or two Eves."

Reactions coming from Muslims-majority Malaysia were more cautious, confirming that gay marriage was an American internal issue.

But, they reiterated their rejection for any interference in any other countries to impose the practice in Muslim countries.

“We want good relations with America, but America must not interfere in other countries' policies on this issue," Ibrahim Ali, an independent member of Malaysia's parliament and leader of a rights group for the country's majority Malay Muslims, said

"They can practice this in America if they want, since it's their right, but we are still very concerned, because whatever America practices, it often wants other countries to follow suit."

Same-sex relationship and marriage are totally prohibited in Islam, Christianity and all divine religions.

Islam teaches that believers should neither do the obscene acts, nor in any way indulge in their propagation.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin, but considers homosexual intercourse as sinful.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI called for defending humanity against the threat posed by homosexual behaviors, warning homosexual acts could lead to the self-destruction of the human race.

Reproduced with permission from OnIslam.net

[Ogopogo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/1 ... 11545.html

Obama Gay Marriage Announcement: Many Black Americans Shrug Off New View

By ERRIN HAINES and JESSE WASHINGTON 05/11/12 08:20 PM ET AP

ARDMORE, Pa. -- Like many black Americans, Dorsey Jackson does not believe in gay marriage, but he wasn't disillusioned when Barack Obama became the first president to support it. The windows of his suburban Philadelphia barbershop still display an "Obama 2012" placard and another that reads "We've Got His Back."

If Obama needs to endorse same-sex marriage to be re-elected, said Jackson, so be it: "Look, man – by any means necessary."

With that phrase popularized by the black radical Malcolm X, Jackson rebutted those who say Obama's new stand will weaken the massive black support he needs to win re-election in November. Black voters and especially black churches have long opposed gay marriage. But the 40-year-old barber and other African-Americans interviewed in politically key states say their support for Obama remains unshaken.

Some questioned whether he really believes what he says about gay marriage or merely took that stand to help defeat Republican Mitt Romney – suggesting African-Americans view the first black president less as an icon than as a straight-up politician who still feels like family.

"Obama is human," said Leon Givens of Charlotte, N.C. "I don't have him on a pedestal."

On Tuesday, Givens voted in favor of banning gay marriage in North Carolina. Many black precincts voted 2-1 for the ballot measure, which passed easily.

The next day, Givens heard Obama tell the nation in a TV interview: "I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

But this fall, Givens plans to register Obama voters and drive senior citizens to the polls. A retired human resources manager, he suspects the president's pronouncement was "more a political thing than his true feelings." But he's not dwelling on it.

"We can agree to disagree on gay marriage," Givens said, "and then I leave him alone."

Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by a mere 14,000 votes, thanks largely to a huge black turnout. Nationally, 95 percent of black voters chose Obama, and 2 million more black people voted than in 2004. No one doubts Obama will carry the black vote this year, but whether he can again turn out such large numbers could prove crucial to his chances.

African-Americans have historically been more hostile to gays and lesbians than other racial and ethnic groups.

Only 39 percent of African-Americans favor gay marriage, compared with 47 percent of white Americans, according to a Pew poll conducted this April. Forty-nine percent of blacks and 43 percent of whites are opposed.

But blacks – like other Americans – have become more supportive of same-sex marriage in recent years. Black support has risen dramatically since 2008, when only 26 percent of black people favored gay marriage and 63 percent were opposed, according to Pew.

Much of the opposition stems from religious beliefs. Church is the backbone of black America – 22 percent of black people attend religious services more than once per week, compared with 11 percent of whites, according to recent AP/GfK polls.

Mel Brown, a 65-year-old project manager in Philadelphia, says same-sex marriage "is between them and their God. The God I serve does not agree with that."

Does Obama's announcement change Brown's support for the president? "Absolutely not. Because Scripture says we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

Black voters, led by black churches, have played key roles in blocking same-sex marriage in states like California, where 2008 exit polls indicated about 70 percent black opposition, and Maryland, where black Democrats were part of a statehouse coalition that stalled a gay marriage bill in 2011. (It passed this year but may face a referendum in November.)

Part of the tension between gays and blacks comes from comparisons of their struggles. Some cast gay marriage as the last frontier of equal rights for all; others counter that minority status comes more from how you look than what you do.

Tanyeo Wotorson, a film producer and director in New York City, supports Obama's new position and said prohibitions on same-sex marriage "return to that time when whites could send people to the back of the bus and women couldn't vote."

Darian Aaron, a gay black man, acknowledges that there are differences between black issues and gay rights, but "at its core both groups are seeking to gain access to full equality under the law."

Even if Obama had not supported same-sex marriage, Aaron said he still would have voted for him because the president has signaled his support in other ways and Romney strongly opposes gay marriage.

Aaron laments that "many within the black community find it nearly impossible to see gay rights through any lens other than biblical." But he finds hope in the statistics showing black people becoming more accepting and says that may be because they've gotten to know gays and lesbians, which breaks down stereotypes.

Many black pastors have been reluctant to address same-sex marriage from the pulpit; the topic remains taboo in much of their community. Now, "with the president taking such a clear stand on the issue, and his being such a beloved figure and historic symbol for African-Americans, I think it will advance the conversation," said the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

"As a pastor, I will have to say something about this on Sunday," Warnock said.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a giant of the civil rights movement who delivered the benediction at Obama's inauguration, said he agrees with Obama on gay marriage.

"I believe in equal rights," Lowery said. "You can't believe in equal rights for some. That's an oxymoron."

However: "Do I like it? I'm uncomfortable with it," said Lowery, 90. "We grew up under boy-girl, man-woman, courtship and marriage."

Obama's statement may actually be following the changing black opinion rather than leading it, said William Jelani Cobb, a Rutgers University professor and author of "The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress."

"Presidencies tend to follow the culture, as opposed to being ahead of it," he said. "What this says is that the culture has gotten to a place where the executive branch feels like it can embrace this and not be so far ahead of the curve that they'll suffer really serious political damage for it."

[RedDog]

Romney just came out on the news saying marriage is between one man and one woman (to a roaring crowd). Obama gambled and drew a line in the sand but Romney has immediately stepped over it. This one issue if pushed will take Obama down. The 31 states who've voted to oppose it have made that abundantly clear. The Kenyan took some really bad advice here.

[muncher]

The President knows where his votes are coming from. He also knows where he wont get support. He is hoping that he will get more leftwing voters turning out.

[CrunchyCon]

Romney just came out on the news saying marriage is between one man and one woman (to a roaring crowd). Obama gambled and drew a line in the sand but Romney has immediately stepped over it. This one issue if pushed will take Obama down. The 31 states who've voted to oppose it have made that abundantly clear. The Kenyan took some really bad advice here.

The Kenyan, as you call him, is probably gambling on the Mexican-Massachusetts Outlaw flip-flopping on the issue between now and election day like John Kerry at a beach footware convention. I would say the odds favor the Kenyan, except that Romney's flip-flopping has already begun as we've seen these last two days with gay adoption: viewtopic.php?f=308&t=154887

[Hailey]

My understanding is that afro-caribbean americans are less likely to support gay marriage and that is a substantial percentage of the persons voting for him.His position is not without risk - either way.

[Ogopogo]

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Kenyan+mus ... /8boaew/-/

Kenyan muslim clerics fault Obama on gay marriage
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US President Barack Obama waves as he steps off Air Force One May 11, 2012 upon arrival at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada. Obama was headed to Reno, Nevada to speak on the economy. AFP PHOTO
By AMINA KIBIRIGE akibirige@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, May 12 2012 at 13:07

Kenyan Muslim leaders from the coast region have condemned President Barack Obama’s support of same sex marriages.

Speaking to the Nation in Mombasa, Council of Imams and Preachers Organising Secretary Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa accused President Obama of playing god by legalizing what "God Himself objects".

“Simply because he has risen to be the President of a super power does not mean he can now start acting as God. He is nothing in the eyes of God and his plans will not succeed just like those who preceded him in such plans,” said Sheikh Khalifa.

He further accused the Kenya Human Rights Commission of propagating western values at the expense of religion by propagating for same sex marriages and abortion.

“God created man and woman so that we can procreate. How come we now want to behave worse than dogs who do not go for their own gender but know the difference between the two?” asked Sheikh Khalifa.

On Thursday, President Obama made history by firmly backing gay marriages after what he said was a long period of personal soul searching thereby sparkling instant speculations as to whether he had hindered his chances of winning a second term in November. (READ: Obama makes history as he supports gay marriage)

While Gay rights groups cheered his declaration, analysts feel Mr Obama could loose out his original religious Hispanic and African-American supporters who helped him win the presidential race in 2008.

Earlier on, a section of US parliamentarians warned those nations that would not be considerate of 'Human Rights’ would not be viable for donor funding.

[Ogopogo]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/news ... 58226.html

Newsweek cover: Obama ‘first gay president’
By Dylan Stableford | The Ticket – 4 hrs ago


It won't be nearly as controversial as Time magazine's breastfeeding cover, but Newsweek's May 21 issue declares Barack Obama the country's "first gay president."

The accompanying cover story was written by Andrew Sullivan, the popular--and openly gay--political blogger. The magazine even gives the commander-in-chief a rainbow halo.

Obama, Sullivan writes, "had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family."

The full cover story is not yet online, but in a blog post published earlier this week, Sullivan wrote that Obama's support of gay marriage brought him to tears:

I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn't know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes.

So let me simply say: I think of all the gay kids out there who now know they have their president on their side. I think of Maurice Sendak, who just died, whose decades-long relationship was never given the respect it deserved. I think of the centuries and decades in which gay people found it impossible to believe that marriage and inclusion in their own families was possible for them, so crushed were they by the weight of social and religious pressure. I think of all those in the plague years shut out of hospital rooms, thrown out of apartments, written out of wills, treated like human garbage because they loved another human being. I think of Frank Kameny. I think of the gay parents who now feel their president is behind their sacrifices and their love for their children.

The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama's journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it. I was in the room long before the 2008 primaries when Obama spoke to the mother of a gay son about marriage equality. He said he was for equality, but not marriage. Five years later, he sees--as we all see--that you cannot have one without the other. But even then, you knew he saw that woman's son as his equal as a citizen. It was a moment--way off the record at the time--that clinched my support for him.

Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That's why we elected him.

(The New Yorker)

The New Yorker, which is also out with a cover story on gay marriage, took a bit more subtle approach with its May 21 issue.

"It's a celebratory moment for our country, and that's what I tried to capture," Bob Staake, the artist behind the New Yorker cover, said. "I don't especially like those rainbow colors, but they are what they are—I had to use them."

He added: "I wanted to celebrate the bravery of the President's statement—a statement long overdue—but all the more appreciated in this political year. We are on the right side of history."

More popular Yahoo! News stories:

• How White House gay marriage declarations are affecting other Democratic candidates

• Time breastfeeding cover sparks controversy

• Will Obama's Julia celebrate a gay marriage?

Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or add us on Tumblr. Handy with a camera? Join our Election 2012 Flickr group to submit your photos of the campaign in action.

[BlawBlaw]

I believe it is the opposite if what you suggest - he believes they SHOULD be allowed to get married, but wants to leave it up to each state.

Why is same-sex marriage a federal decision in Canada anyways? Aren't we supposed to have "strong" provinces and a weak federal government?

Constitutionally speaking, no, but the USA and Canada have turned everything uspide down such that now the American federal government of limited and enumerated powers is more powerful than the state governments while in Canada the provinces have accumulated a lot more powers.

The Canadian Constitution specifically makes marriage and divorce a federal matter, although solemnization of marriage is provincial. My understanding is that the British parliament stuck that in to prevent the French Catholics in Quebec from doing goofy things.

[backhoe]

Romney just came out on the news saying marriage is between one man and one woman (to a roaring crowd). Obama gambled and drew a line in the sand but Romney has immediately stepped over it. This one issue if pushed will take Obama down. The 31 states who've voted to oppose it have made that abundantly clear. The Kenyan took some really bad advice here.

Yep- shot himself in both feet & the Make Believe Media is helping him reload...

http://twitchy.com/2012/05/13/the-angel-obamael-gets-his-gay-lo-from-newsweek/

The angel Obamael gets his gay-lo from Newsweek

[fourhorses]

Obama just lost the election.

wait,
meet Mitt

[Faramir]

As recent events have proven, voters are "scared" of social conservatives. This will play great to the moderate voters and ensure Obama wins a landslide.

[Ogopogo]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopOpinion

Updated May 14, 2012, 4:24 p.m. ET

Gay? Yay!
Straight news gives way to propaganda.

Gay? Yay!
Politics makes strange bedfellows. Just ask Rand Paul and Tina Brown.

Paul, Kentucky's junior senator, "joked about President Obama's changed postion [sic] on gay marriage in a speech in Iowa Friday: 'Call me cynical, but I wasn't sure his views on marriage could get any gayer,' " BuzzFeed.com reports. Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek, dubbed Obama THE FIRST GAY PRESIDENT on the magazine's cover, which featured a photo illustration--at least we assume it wasn't a straight photo--of the president with a rainbow halo. The New Yorker's cover is a tamer version of the same joke, showing the White House with its Ionic columns in gay-rainbow colors.

Paul's joke was widely condemned, with the lefties at ThinkProgress.org crowing that "even Tony Perkins" of the conservative Family Research Foundation found it "unacceptable." Of course although Paul and Brown made essentially the same joke, the tone was different. Paul's joke was mocking, perhaps even mean-spirited, while Brown's (promoting an exultant piece by Andrew Sullivan) was a sympathetic in-joke.

Yet if you think about the substance of the joke rather than the tone, Brown's version was worse, or at least was representative of something worse. Paul, it seems safe to say, was expressing the views of the majority of his constituents, nearly 75% of whom voted in favor of a 2004 constitutional amendment affirming the traditional definition of marriage. Politicians are supposed to take sides on questions of public policy.

News reporters are not. To be sure, Sullivan is an opinion writer, and one can reasonably argue that Newsweek long ago gave up any pretense of delivering straight news. But in reading the coverage of Obama's same-sex marriage announcement last week, we've been struck by how much even news reporters seem to have given up evenhandedness to propagandize on behalf of one side of a divisive social issue.

The most interesting aspect of this propaganda is that it seeks to deliver two contrary messages: that Obama's declaration was a great act of courage and that it entails no political risk. Consider this piece from the New York Times, datelined Charlotte, N.C.:

On Tuesday, the voters in this state went to their polling stations and, by a landslide margin, elected to join the voters in 30 other states in enshrining a ban on same-sex marriages in the State Constitution. The next day, President Obama, perhaps buoyed by repeated polls showing support for same-sex marriage nationally, announced his personal support for it.

And in the days after that, people here and elsewhere concluded that, when November rolls around, this public disagreement between the president and a large majority of voters in this state on a burning social issue will not make much difference at all.

"People here and elsewhere"--that covers pretty much everyone, doesn't it? And it's true that there have been a series of opinion polls showing a plurality or even a slight majority of Americans favoring same-sex marriage. It is also true same-sex marriage has lost in every state where the question has been put to the voters.

Granted, those were mostly socially conservative states. But even the liberal states of California, Oregon and Maine voted against same-sex marriage, albeit by narrower margins than elsewhere. Given the disparity between opinion polls and actual election results, a logical conclusion would be that the former are systematically overestimating support for same-sex marriage.
Podcast

James Taranto on the media and marriage.

Indeed, that seems to have happened in North Carolina, as the Times notes: "It came as a surprise to many on both sides that the vote was so decisive in North Carolina, where a poll in March by Elon University, a liberal arts university in the state, found that two-thirds of residents supported some legal recognition of same-sex couples." Only 32% of poll respondents favored the amendment, to 60% against. It passed 61% to 39%. What accounts for this disparity? Our hypothesis is that people are more influenced by media propaganda when talking to pollsters than in the privacy of the voting booth.

One reason to think same-sex marriage won't hurt Obama is that he can probably count on the overwhelming support of blacks, who among racial and ethnic groups are the most strongly opposed to same-sex marriage. "Many Blacks Shrug Off Obama's New View on Gays" according to an Associated Press headline.

But "many" is not the same as "all." The AP quotes only blacks who are staying loyal to the president, but Baltimore's WJZ-TV manages to find a local exception:

When Obama announced that his position on same-sex marriage had evolved, it outraged some African-American pastors like Pastor and Del. Emmett Burns.

"He has said to his base, African-Americans, 'I am going against your beliefs and your thoughts,' " Burns said.

He's so opposed to same-sex marriage, he told church members he will no longer support the president and now predicts Obama will lose the election because of it.

It would be a shock if Obama fails to carry heavily democratic Maryland, which may have a referendum on the ballot to block the state's new same-sex-marriage law. But as the AP notes, "nationally, 95 percent of black voters chose Obama, and 2 million more black people voted than in 2004." And while the president will certainly retain the votes of "many" blacks, relatively small losses could make a difference. In North Carolina in 2008, blacks made up 23% of the electorate, and 95% of them voted for Obama, according to exit polls. If the first number had been 22% or the second 90%, John McCain would have carried the state.

Mickey Kaus points to a Gallup poll that ought to worry Democrats. "Six in 10 Say Obama Same-Sex Marriage View Won't Sway Vote" is Gallup's headline. In truth, it will probably sway the votes of a lot fewer than 4 in 10. The poll found that 24% of Democrats are more likely to vote for him and 52% of Republicans less likely. As Gallup notes: "It is probably safe to assume, given the strong relationship between party identification and vote choice, that most of those voters would have voted for or against Obama regardless of his view on gay marriage." (On the other hand, it's possible the strikingly higher Republican number portends a higher turnout.)

But as Kaus notes, the issue needn't sway large numbers of voters in order to prove important or even decisive. And Gallup's findings suggest that it is considerably more likely to sway voters against Obama than for him. Among Democrats, 10% said they were less likely to vote for him, while only 2% of Republicans said they were more likely. And 23% of independents said less likely, vs. only 11% more likely.

In the same poll, 51% of respondents overall said they approve of same-sex marriage; only 45% disapproved. That may reassure Obama. But given that same-sex marriage has consistently done far worse at the ballot box than in opinion polls, it ought to unsettle him instead. He may be doing great damage to his re-election prospects by listening to the cheerleaders in the media.