President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he hadn’t always been in favor of gay marriage, contrary to former White House adviser David Axelrod’s tale of his faux-evolution on the issue.
In an interview with Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith, Obama was asked why he felt the need to be “bullshitting” his position on gay marriage during his first presidential campaign, as Axelrod described in his new book “Believer: My Forty Years In Politics.”
“I think David is mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue,” Obama told Buzzfeed. “I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else, and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there.”
Axelrod wrote that the then-senator was in favor of gay marriage and had to be persuaded to soften his position for political reasons.
“Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as [Obama] ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’” Axelrod wrote, as quoted by Time.
Obama disputed that he had always been in favor of gay marriage in his interview with Buzzfeed, drawing a distinction between the rights he personally felt gay couples were entitled to and what he saw as the fair political approach to the issue.
“I think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of [gay] marriage per se isn’t quite accurate,” the President said.
He explained that he had always seen civil unions as a “sufficient way of squaring the circle” between religious sensitivities and gay couples’ rights. Obama said he then came to fully support gay marriage once he understood “the pain and the sense of stigma” that his friends who were gay felt about civil unions.
Upon reading Pres. Obama’s answers to the BuzzFeed interviewer, it sounds to me like David Axelrod did not misconstrue anything. I understand the desire to save face, but Pres. Obama is splitting hairs here with his response. That said, I am happy Mr. Obama won both elections, as I believed then–and now–he was the best man running. President Obama, thank you for working so diligently for the American people – especially in light of the unbelievable arrogant obtuseness you faced from the other side. I only wish you had given up being nice after the first 365 days. They only spit in your face then crow about it to their “base.” Thank you.
I’m gay, and the president’s position was actually mine initially too. I remember thinking, “What’s the big deal? We get the same rights and we call it civil union or something.” Just 15 years ago the idea of gay marriage actually happening seemed utterly ludicrous. I’m glad my friends fought for the actual term marriage and convinced me it was the way to go, but even I was skeptical about pushing for the term back when this all started. It’s still mind boggling. I never expected it to happen in my lifetime, much less this quickly.
Yeah, this came off a bit like trying to tap dance around the issue with a broken leg. He would have been better off just not answering questions on this entirely.
Unlike what is misleadingly implied in the headline, it seems it was Ben Smith who used the term ‘bullshitting’ – not Obama. Its uncharacteristic of Obama to use this kind of term in public. No doubt the man swears his head off in private – and he has every reason to – but please – this title is just obnoxious click bait. As for the substance, I see why he moderated his stance. And I didn’t really care because I always understood where he was coming from and he had his eye on the end goal. He had to get elected to affect the desired change and he did it. So what is the complaint now?
I’ll add, I don’t think Obama should interview with Buzzfeed. Smith has always practiced a kind of gothca journalism. He was such an asshole during the primary when he reported for Politico. He was obviously a Hillary guy. I used to read and comment on his column to push back.
I gotta call BS on this one. Either it’s right, and should be a right, or it’s not; there is no squaring of one’s “personal belief” with politics, another way of saying other people’s prejudices. Did he need to square his personal beliefs about racial equality with other people’s sincerely held beliefs to the contrary? Shameful. Straight 2-time O-voter am I.