With only 24 hours left to file a brief on the hotly contested Proposition 8, President Obama has many of his supporters wondering why he has not been heard from yet since he recently declared that he was for gay marriage rights.
According to the Daily Kos, quoting an article from the Wall Street Journal, there is a brief being prepared for White House approval as I'm writing, but as of yet it has not been signed. In this article the point is being made that the gay community understood that trying to overturn all of Proposition 8 could backfire and leave them with nothing. That appears to be what's keeping the White House from taking a fully supportive position on the matter.
In brief, "Proposition 8 was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections. The measure added a new provision, Section 7.5 of the Declaration of Rights, to the California Constitution, which provides that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.[2][3][4] By restricting the recognition of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the proposition overturned the California Supreme Court's ruling of In re Marriage Cases that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry."
President Obama has recently asked the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which states that marriage is only between a woman and a man, so it clear that the president is siding with the gay community on some level.
One has to wonder what political motive is keeping him from fully supporting the overthrow of Proposition 8. Could it be that his decision to support the removal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell was just the politically expedient thing to do and not the result of a true evolution of his real position on gay rights?
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