Evolving from states rights

A lot of gay bloggers are pleased with Obama for praising the gay marriage success in New York, yet annoyed with him for not personally coming out in favor of gay marriage. He uses the argument that states have the right to make their own marriage laws. And the swarm of bloggers wonder, "He's biracial. He is pushing for states rights?"

Ari Ezra Waldman, who blogs about gay legal issues, takes a look at Obama's position. Over the last half century, "states rights" has been a code phrase to mean the feds should butt out of the business of Southern states and allow us to discriminate against blacks however we want. But there have been times the sentiment of states rights have been used for progressive causes (alas, no examples). And many people today who clamor for some aspect of powerful states and tiny central government really do like some of the things done in Washington.

The question remains, why won't Obama lead?

While the majority of the country favors same-sex marriage, in at least three states critical to his reelection -- Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada -- the majority very much does not favor same-sex marriage. And gay marriage is one of those issues where a small base can make a lot of noise while the majority aren't willing to stake their existence on it. A commenter noted that since the Calif. marriage fight two years ago Obama has been very careful to oppose marriage amendments, support gay marriage laws, and not say what his own personal opinion is, other than to say it is "evolving."

Obama is a pragmatist and settles for what he knows he can get (some of us think he capitulates rather than settles). Gay marriage is something that just won't come up in this Congress, so why make a lot of noise about it, perhaps jeopardizing other issues? He is also not what we expect from a liberal, able to separate personal beliefs from public policy. His religious beliefs and family ties are too deep. He commented on that in a speech back in 2006. Liberals are too quick to avoid discussing religion (and that would be because conservatives have given it such a bad name?) and so don't address issues in moral terms that everyone understands. Liberal secularism can't be as strident as conservative religion and can't demand religion be left out of the public discourse.

So what's behind Obama's claim of same-sex marriage being a state's rights issue? It is hard to tell. But perhaps we can learn a bit to hone our argument to be more persuasive (which Waldman will leave for another post).