President Barack Obama was cruising along happily in the slow lane on gay marriage,
but he’s been sideswiped by his own vice president and his best friend
in the Cabinet — who have veered off-message in a provocatively public way.
Obama wants to target Mitt Romney but suddenly finds himself playing defense
on marriage equality, a social issue that poses a political triple
threat: Embracing it risks alienating religiously conservative
independents, blacks and Latinos in swing states. Delaying or opposing
it ticks off gay Democratic donors and young voters who overwhelmingly
support it.
But the third and middle path adopted by the president
and his advisers — interpreted by many gay and lesbian supporters as an
election-year expedient that puts him to the right of his own party —
could undermine Obama’s 2012 message that he’s still a new-breed leader
willing to brave political peril for principle.
