President Barack Obama will soon endorse gay marriage, predicts Richard Socarides in an opinion piece in The New Yorker.
“After a year in which we saw a number of high-profile gay-rights victories, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the legislative enactment of same-sex marriage in New York,” writes the a former adviser on gay rights to President Bill Clinton, “it’s hard to imagine that more big news is on the immediate horizon. But it is. Two highly significant court rulings in gay-rights cases pending in federal appellate courts are expected soon. Moreover, President Barack Obama’s self-described ‘evolution’ on same sex-marriage appears likely to end with a strategically timed (if low-key) pre-election announcement of his support for marriage equality. In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is being asked to address a lower court decision striking down California’s voter-approved Proposition 8. If the court upholds the earlier ruling, it would restore same-sex marriage in California, making that right available to a total of almost twenty-five per cent of all Americans, in seven states and the District of Columbia. Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which is before the First Circuit, asks whether the Defense of Marriage Act should be declared unconstitutional. That law prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legally preformed in states which allow them. Many of the lawyers who follow these cases closely—and as one who served as an adviser to President Clinton on gay rights, I include myself in that category—believe that the odds favor marriage advocates.”
Socarides goes on to say that the rulings would have signicant impact, and that, combined with the change in public opinion on the subject, it will be the basis of President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage before the 2012 election. “Until now, the President’s position has been based on political expediency,” he writes. “He has tried to have it both ways. He articulated a kind of a ‘separate but equal’ policy—in support of ‘full rights’ without endorsing marriage. This may have provided a useful middle ground for a brief period, but it has now outlived its usefulness. Plus, most believed that the President was being disingenuous, since he actually supported same-sex marriage before he opposed it. Obama wouldn’t be doing this to energize his gay supporters. He accomplished that with the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and with new Justice Department policies that put the government on the side of equality advocates. Moreover, gay voters understand and dread all of the Republican alternatives.”
With President Obama’s history as a constitutional law scholar before he was president, Socarids points out that he “has an important opportunity here to articulate his ‘evolved’ view on same-sex marriage in a legal context. He needs to remind people that respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the courts are principles upon which this country was founded. As Americans living in a society that is dynamic and changing, we have always looked to the courts to interpret what it means to be part of our democracy.”
The opinion piece finishes strong with Socarides writing, “Those principles should apply when it comes to marriage rights for gay and lesbian Americans. Having the President publicly endorse marriage equality will be an important symbolic and substantive turning point. It would likely accelerate the pro-equality shift in public opinion, including in minority communities. It will make it easier for federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to rule in favor of gay rights in the face of arguments that doing so is out of the mainstream of American political thought. And it might just help get President Obama reelected.”
Photo: President Obama; Equally Wed archives
