President Obama’s campaign office in North Carolina issued a statement today stating that the President opposes that state’s proposed constitutional marriage discrimination amendment, known as Amendment One. According to the News & Observer:
President Barack Obama today came out against the proposed constitutional amendment on North Carolina’s May 8th ballot banning same sex marriages and civil unions, weighing into a fight in a key battleground state.
His campaign issued a statement saying the amendment was discriminatory.
“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples,” said Cameron French, his North Carolina campaign spokesman.
“That’s what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do – it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples – and that’s why the President does not support it.”
While TWO is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization, we have an obligation as an LGBT advocacy group to both condemn anti-LGBT extremism from political figures on all sides and give due credit to those politicans (again, on all sides) who respect, uphold, and protect LGBT people and oppose efforts to discriminate against us. President Obama has come out on the right side of North Carolina’s unconscionable marriage discrimination amendment and deserves credit for having done so. Furthermore, the next time you hear someone on the right (especially if they’re a brash blowhard like Chris Christie) justify their support of marriage discrimination by saying they’re in lockstep with President Obama, call shenanigans. While his “evolution” on marriage hasn’t happened as fast as any of us would like, attempts to draw an equivalency between the President’s position on marriage and that of virtually any high-profile national conservative are false and disingenuous.
