Thursday, October 25, 2012

Obama Endorses Marriage Equality — Three Times

As a number of LGBT blogs and media outlets are reporting, today Barack Obama underscored that only one of the presidential contenders deserves the support of LGBT voters - or at least those among us who are subconsciously self-loathing and/or more worried about lower taxes than their own self-respect and dignity as equal citizens.   Today Obama endorse passage of marriage equality in the states of Washington State, Maine and Maryland where initiatives are on the ballot on November 6th.  In contrast, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the GOP party platform make it abundantly clear that they  want LGBT Americans to have no equal rights with heterosexual citizens -indeed, they would have us relegated to one step above criminals (in fact, some in the GOP want to re-criminalize homosexuality).  Here are highlights from The Advocate on today's developments:

President Obama on Thursday officially endorsed all three state ballot measures with the potential to affirm marriage equality this November. In three separate yet similar statements, press secretaries for the commander in chief indicated the president's support for Washington's Referendum 74, Maine's Question 1, and Maryland's Question 6. 
 
At a campaign event in June, Obama personally endorsed marriage equality in the northeastern state [of Maryland].  "We're moving forward to a country where we treat everybody fairly and everybody equally, with dignity and respect," the president said in his speech, according to The Baltimore Sun. "And here in Maryland, thanks to the leadership of committed citizens and Governor O'Malley, you have a chance to reaffirm that principle in the voting booth in November. It's the right thing to do."

Back in April, Obama released a statement opposing the Minnesota marriage amendment, which would change the state's constitution to bar same-sex couples from legally marrying. Minnesota already has a state law banning same-sex marriage, but the proposed amendment would enshrine that discrimination in the state's constitution, making it more difficult to challenge in court.

That's leadership and political courage.  Meanwhile, Romney is ducking reporters who want to know his opinion on the refusal of would be Senator Mourdock to apologize for or withdraw his statement that pregnancies arising through rape are "God's plan" and should not be terminated by abortion.

No comments: