As in North Carolina, President Barack Obama’s Minnesota campaign office issued a statement today officially opposing that state’s proposed marriage discrimination amendment:
“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 Kristen Sosanie, spokeswoman for the Obama for America – Minnesota campaign. “That’s what the Minnesota 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.”
And as I said when I posted the North Carolina news, TWO is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization. Still, 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 Minnesota’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.
