Curmudgeon's Corner

Evolving or Devolving?

Posted by Al Campbell on May 10, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life

The President said his position on same-sex marriage has been evolving over the past two years.  He said that he has finally decided to make his new position clear.  His pastor has told him that he disapproves of the President’s newly evolved position, but that hasn’t deterred the President.  He made his newly evolved position clear yesterday.

I was not intending to vote for Mr. Obama for a second term, nor did I vote for him for his first term.  So, my vote will be unaffected by this newly evolved position.  I suspect that there will be votes to be gained by the President as the result of this newly evolved position on the subject of gay marriage, however.

Jay Weber (WISN 1130) correctly pointed out this morning that the President has hedged his bet even though his position has evolved.  While stating that he believes it is time for us to make gay marriages legal, he does not think this rises to the level of a national referendum, but that it should be dealt with at the state level across our country.

That newly evolved position seems something less than a real position when the President doesn’t think enough of it to press the issue in Congress.  He must know that his ‘bully pulpit’ would be immensely beneficial to this new cause but, for some reason, he isn’t quite ready to pursue this righting of a perceived wrong beyond simply telling us all what he now believes.

His newly evolved position seems a bit hollow, a bit disingenuous if it is so tepid a position as to warrant only a statement without a further attempt to cause it to become law.  Will those who would benefit from legalizing gay marriage take this as the President likely intended it be taken, and cast their ballots for him…as if they wouldn’t have before since at least he represents the lesser of evils from their perspective?

Is this intended to force Mitt Romney into talking about the subject in an effort to cost him votes from this segment of our population?  We all know, or should know, that the press will be anxious to corner Romney and talk about his position on same-sex marriage.

Frankly, this appears to be one of those election-driven statements lacking in sincerity that might just erupt into something that’ll make the President wish he’d have evolved a bit more slowly.  This might make him wish he had reined his Vice President in sooner rather than using his earlier personal statement as the catalyst for his now evolved position, too.

Was VP Biden actually making his position statement to prepare us for this finally-evolved position statement from our President? 

Is all this simply too cynical a thing to ponder?  Unfortunately, the answer to that question is “no”.  We need be cynical and carefully consider everything in this politically-driven environment.  Our President has shown us that he will seize every advantage since he can’t let something like this go to waste now can he?