Well, that took long enough...

But it was definitely time he said it:



I've pointed out before that I didn't entirely buy the idea that his position was "evolving" so much as he was waiting for an appropriate moment to share his view. I'm conflicted about the issue of timing the expression of a potentially divisive opinion when one knows their position is just, but the presidency lends weight to an opinion. It's not called the "bully pulpit" for nothing, and the president does have the opportunity to advocate for the positions that have meaning to him--

But it's also limited, especially on issues like this. It can be a net positive that the president supports marriage equality. On the other hand, his advocacy of an issue can't be about him. For whatever reason, there is a contingent of people on the right who have decided that whatever the president is for, they're against. What I think President Obama has finally realized is that the same people who are dead set against gay marriage are pretty much the same people who don't support him and never would. There's just no value in going after their support.   But all the same, it makes sense that he expresses his support after NC's Amendment 1 * vote. That had to play out on its own, without even the appearance that his statement was about influence.

Regarding that vote, I think that it occurred during a primary election influenced both the numbers of people voting and the composition of the voting pool in a way that skewed more in favor of the Amendment. The percentage by which is passes is disheartening, but what's infuriating to me was finding that there were people who supported the amendment not even knowing exactly was it was about. I disagree in principle with idea of letting a majority vote regarding the rights of a minority--this really shows how people's rights can be voted away without much of a thought by people with no real involvement in that issue.


*Blog note: I was disturbed this morning to find that I had a blog post up about Amendment 1's passing that I distinctly did not remember publishing because it was only in draft form, containing one image, one long quote from an article, and a sentence or two.  I shuddered and deleted it--and I'm not really sure what I'm more disturbed by: the possibility that I could have been tired enough to publish instead of save what I'm working on (I've kind of been doing this awhile--but Blogger, oh Blogger. You change things.) or that the platform I'm working on made the editorial decision to run with my draft (ghosts in the machine).  This is not paranoia talking. I have one blog post that is incomplete when viewed in IE but shows up in Chrome. I can't explain that, folks.   So in the meantime, I've had some traffic from blogrolls to a non-existent page.  Sorry about that.

One day, I will get the hang of this blogging thing.....