Obama Needs to Take Gay Marriage Stance

Barack Obama has called himself a “fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans,” but with legalized same-sex marriage spreading to state after state and “don’t ask don’t tell” ripe for repeal, he’s been silent, complains Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. Washington politicians can let the states and the courts sort out gay marriage, “but that’s a dodge, not a stance. It certainly can’t be confused with leadership.”

Obama favored “civil unions” in the campaign as a pure semantic “political calculation,” writes Robinson, who "never understood the logic. If semantics are the only difference between a civil union and a marriage, why go to the trouble of drawing a distinction? It seems to me that equality means equality, and either you’re for it, or you’re not.” Which will it be, Barack? (More gay rights stories.)