The president and gay marriage

[Royal]

Hi everyone,

Let me start out by saying I am for same sex marriage 100,000+% I believe in who ever wants to get married go for it. We all know president Obama supports same sex marriage which is great but, correct me if I'm wrong. As far as I know no president can put a nation wide law that says anyone can get married. (It would be nice if he could) To have same sex marriage legalized it is up to each state and the U.S Supreme Court. Is this correct? I believe it is but, would like your feed back. I think a lot of people are thinking just because a president supports gay marriage the country will have that right. Trust me I think everyone no matter what should have that right. I also, think it was tactful,wrong etc to support gay marriage knowing its not up to you but, each state to get a vote

[Pix]

I believe ultimately it's up to the SCOTUS, assuming they decide to rule on it, and that can affect the entire nation, not just one state. That said, they usually don't rule on anything until someone puts a law or perhaps even an executive order (that is decree by presidential fiat, but otherwise functions as a law), though offhand I only recall such presidential mandates being used in regards to wars and Congress being the one (typically after months if not years) to decide if the executive order sticks or not (but IIRC the SCOTUS also has authority to judge its validity, but probably wouldn't unless someone legally challenged it).

I don't see Obama running an executive order to grant full equality to gays, and if he did the backlash would probably be fierce, unlike if the SCOTUS were to recognize our rights across the land.

And I think what you meant to say was he shouldn't "mandate" (as opposed to "support"). To my knowledge and offhand memory Obama has stayed within his authority in his officially recognizing our rights. That is, he's pretty much restricted himself to federal programs and federal money rather than mandating what the states are going to do.

[pellaz]

let me start out by saying I am for same sex marriage 10,000%.

thanks for your support and sorry for the obvious:
-SSM would main stream the gay agenda, we are the 3-5% that is not going away, in fact we were always there. Sexuality is like eye/hair color, we dont burn the gingers at the stake any more, nor should gays be waiting for it to get better. Compared to the straights we are not more promiscuous, unnatural, or incapable of a monogamous relationship.
-the ~5% gay population is not large enough to have any social effect on the 95% straight population. We are not the 45% the straights think we are and not the 10% Kinsey said we were.

... president Obama supports same sex marriage ...

Sorry folks, its politics, and his support was an election gimmick to generate votes. It worked! With congress a republican majority his second administration will be any different than the first. We should look fwd for:
-Obama will have Supreme Court appointments. Hope they are predictable affirming appointee's.
-the gay vote is large enough to have an effect on an election, all presidential US elections are close. This might loosen the hold the social conservatives have on the republican party (loose the "In God We Trust" jargon). Like them or not (they have expensive tax cuts and tend to start inefficient wars) we need a functional two party system.

so finally my answer your question:

... I think it was tactful,wrong etc to support gay marriage knowing its not up to you but, each state to get a vote

integration of the gay agenda into the 95% will likely follow the path interracial marriage had to. Recall it was a 1967 Supreme Court decision that deemed anti interracial marriage laws unconstitutional. Up till that point each state had its own opinion. It is not a sustainable stable situation for states to have significantly differing legal language; (4example families move to another state are they still married?, effects tax laws, schools etc). Notice conservative Iowa was early to accept interracial marriage and incidentally one of the first suffrage states. Notice the conservative SE states held out to the very end and were forced to adopt, just like now.

reference the wiki map:

fyi:
grey = no anti interracial marriage laws ever considered
green = repealed 1890's
yello = repealed 1948 to 1967
red = overturned by the Supreme Court decision 1992

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Having a leader supporting the idea is a step in the right direction. I seriously doubt he will be the man to push the point. However having a president who is openly tolerant means that public opinion will lean further to equality when it comes to marriage.

How it will work is pretty much like it worked with interracial marriage, more and more states will pass gay marriage until there is a majority then the Supreme Court will make a law that will topple the rest of the states into line.

The Oval Office does not own a magic wand... While the Oval office an present a bill it is ultimately up to the Senate and House to pass a bill into law.

Executive Order (forcing a law) is only in extreme circumstances, usually when its a National Emergency.

[Royal]

thank you everyone what great replays! much appreciated for all the feedback. i would like to apologize in my opening post i wrote 10,000+ percent it was a spelling error i meant 100,000% +

[ChadCoxRox]

Obama's endorsement of gay marriage was a primary factor in my decision to vote for him and not because he could make it legal, but because he endorses it as our country's leader.

[bryandurel]

I voted obama. heck my facebook and twitter accounts are shrines to him.

The reason is that he realizes and supports the fact that we as individual have rights and that there's no sophist science or idiot-psychology that makes us the way we are.

And yes I have a right to marry whomsoever I want whether I do ever want to actually exercise my option is my choice.

[Royal]

Thank you for the feed back guys

[princealbertofb]

...
-the ~5% gay population is not large enough to have any social effect on the 95% straight population. We are not the 45% the straights think we are and not the 10% Kinsey said we were.

I think you'll find that Kinsey reported that people were on a sliding scale of 1 to 6 in terms of sexual orientation, so the figures of people who are gay or would have a gay relationship would probably be higher if the pressure against that kind of sexuality was not so high. Your ~5% figure takes into account people who have registered as gay solely, I'm suspecting, but does not take into account the wide range of sexual variety in orientations. This might be a thing of the future, if acceptance becomes more widespread. To that low percentage, you can also add those people who are gay-friendly enough to embrace those ideas, so it makes the political clout much more powerful.

Sorry folks, its politics, and his support was an election gimmick to generate votes. It worked! With congress a republican majority his second administration will be any different than the first. We should look fwd for:
-Obama will have Supreme Court appointments. Hope they are predictable affirming appointee's....

It may have been just a political tactic but in the end, he will be accountable to all those who've believed in what he was saying and, to be honest, it was an important stance, even if he didn't think he would be able to implement it fully. By his stance he may be able to influence the bodies and instances that are likely to make it a reality for all American citizens. In any case he has already swayed a number of people (or just reinforced the current idea that homosexuality is nothing really out of the ordinary even if it only affects a small percentage of the population). The public has never been so ready to hear this message as in this new century. Things will evolve, hopefully.

reference the wiki map:

fyi:
grey = no anti interracial marriage laws ever considered
green = repealed 1890's
yello = repealed 1948 to 1967
red = overturned by the Supreme Court decision 1992

Thanks for this map and the explanations.

[Lilitu]

The US president's endorsement will most definitely have a strong influence on the progression of same sex marriage support.

New Zealand's recent bill on same sex marriage was directly a result of Obama's announcemnt and then subsequently our PM John Key's support of SSM, according to the MP who proposed the bill Louisa Wall.