GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

A comment on the Rick Warren controversy: the stunning thing in the whole conversation is that most everyone seems to forget that Warren has the same position on gay marriage as Barack Obama. (Hat tip: GayPatriotWest.) It seems a lot of gays and lesbians think Obama doesn’t mean it when he says he opposes gay marriage, and Democrats like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton probably don’t. But Obama has spoken eloquently about why he opposes same-sex marriage:

• “I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every culture.” (The Audacity of Hope, 2006)

• “I don’t think marriage is a civil right.” (10/26/2004)

• “I believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God is in the mix.” (8/17/2008)

• “Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” (6/28/06)

These are not the words of someone taking a position out of political expediency. Just because Obama opposed Proposition 8 (as I did, by the way) doesn’t mean he supports gay marriage. Call me naive, but I think Obama means it. I really think his position on marriage and my position on marriage are not that far off.

Now, if someday we find out that Obama has been a secret SSM supporter all along, he’s still got my respect for expressing what I think about marriage better than I ever could.