Richard Socarides, who served as President Clinton’s point man on gay and lesbian issues while occupying a number of administration posts, hailed President Obama’s gay marriage announcement as a “historic moment.”
“I think it is a historic moment and one that will go down in the record books along with events like Stonewall as a real turning point for the gay rights movement,” he told TPM in an interview. “I think that the presdent’s willingness to share in very personal terms the journey that he and his family have been through on this issue will help all Americans in the discussions that theyre having around their dinner tables.”
Gay marriage first emerged as a national issue in the early 1990s, and was considered so politically radioactive that President Clinton and huge bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same sex marriage sanctioned by individual states (none of which had legalized same sex marriage at the time). A lot’s changed since then: Obama has refused to defend DOMA in Court and Clinton not only supports gay marriage but recorded robocalls in an effort to stop North Carolina’s anti-gay marriage amendment, which passed Tuesady.
“It reflects the enormous progress we’ve made as a country on this issue and how far we’ve come culturally in terms of the enormous and rapid shifts in public opinion,” Socarides said.”I think we’re still a 50-50 country on this issue, so I’m sure some of the political advisers were hoping they could avoid it until after the election. But I think it’s too important a national issue to remian neutral on, so I think the president did the right thing.”
