PoliFact | Print Barack Obama's shiftg stance on gay marriage

Contents:

• 1ST US PRINT TO ENDORSE GAY MARRIAGE: MAKG HISTORY, OR FLOWG WH ?
• GAY MARRIAGE
• HISTORY OF GAY MARRIAGE
• THE EVOLUTN OF THE NATN’S ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’
• OBAMA BE 1ST PRINT TO SUPPORT GAY ‘MARRIAGE’
• GAY RIGHTS
• OBAMA BE FIRST U.S. PRINT TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

1ST US PRINT TO ENDORSE GAY MARRIAGE: MAKG HISTORY, OR FLOWG WH ?

A natn full of people at ease among openly gay -workers, relativ and s characters may already have passed Barack Obama print scrib his change of posn on gay marriage as several steps behd his 10- and 13-year-old dghters and the llege stunts he equently enunters — even young Republins — who already see treatg gays equally as no big is the societal backdrop agast which Obama ma his pronouncement Wednday:After the ary's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was lifted last year, gay and lbian soldiers who me out to their ras arms reported beg met wh shgs. On TV shows like "Morn Fay, " ''Grey's Anatomy" and "Smash, " gay characters get married, adopt children and kiss on screen, to ltle public Joe Bin, whose weekend claratn that he's "absolutely fortable" wh gay marriage seemed to enurage Obama to take on the polilly hazardo subject, creded the 1998-2006 TV s "Will & Grace" wh dog "more to te the public than almost anythg anybody's done so far. Mae, Maryland and Washgton state lawmakers have moved toward gay marriage, wh the fal out possibly to be cid by voters as a whole, the natn is almost evenly divid on the qutn of same-sex marriage, wh most nservativ and Republins opposed and Democrats and pennts favour.

But polls show support's been on an upward trend for years, and the opposn clters among Amerins over age out of 10 of those who are younger than that favour gay marriage, acrdg to an AP-Natnal Constutn Center poll.

The numbers grow when you clu those who are OK wh equal legal stat for gay upl so long as 's lled somethg like a civil unn stead of a particularly ntent is when the qutn of gay rights tersects wh children and wh ernment benefs and gays and lbians be allowed to adopt children? How gay marriage is fold to the printial mpaign will be a good barometer for how far Ameri's views have Reed, chairman of the nservative Fah & Freedom Coaln, said Obama had jt hand prumptive Republin nomee Mt Romney a choice culture issue.

GAY MARRIAGE

He spoke of his cisn personal, not polil, terms, notg his experience wh the gay parents who serve on his staff or who are raisg iends of his dghters, Sasha and girls would never image "that somehow their iends' parents would be treated differently, " Obama said.

He's noddg his head, " said polil historian Evan Cornog, an of Hofstra Universy's School of Communitn, who has studied how prints build their own historians look back 50 years or so on the stggle for gay rights and s place Amerin culture, Cornog said, "It may be that 'Morn Fay' means more than Obama's statement.

HISTORY OF GAY MARRIAGE

Early Years: Same-Sex Marriage Bans In 1970, jt one year after the historic Stonewall Rts that galvanized the gay rights movement, law stunt Richard Baker and librarian Jam McConnell applied for a marriage license Gerald Nelson rejected their applitn bee they were a same-sex uple, and a trial urt upheld his cisn.

” This lg effectively blocked feral urts om lg on same-sex marriage for s, leavg the cisn solely the hands of stat, which alt blow after blow to those hopg to see gay marriage beg 1973, for stance, Maryland beme the first state to create a law that explicly f marriage as a unn between a man and woman, a belief held by many nservative relig groups.

THE EVOLUTN OF THE NATN’S ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’

Though the gay rights movement saw some advancements the 1970s and 1980s—such as Harvey Milk beg the first openly gay man elected to public office the untry 1977—the fight for gay marriage ma ltle headway for many years. In 1989, the San Francis Board of Supervisors passed an ordance that allowed homosexual upl and unmarried heterosexual upl to register for domtic partnerships, which granted hospal visatn rights and other years later, the District of Columbia siarly passed a new law that allowed same-sex upl to register as domtic partners.

C., 1993, the hight urt Hawaii led that a ban on same-sex marriage may vlate that state nstutn’s Equal Protectn Clse—the first time a state urt has ever ched toward makg gay marriage Hawaii Supreme Court sent the se—brought by a gay male uple and two lbian upl who were nied marriage licens 1990—back for further review to the lower First Circu Court, which 1991 origally dismissed the the state tried to prove that there was “pellg state tert” jtifyg the ban, the se would be tied up ligatn for the next three Defense of Marriage Act Opponents of gay marriage, however, did not s on their hnch. That is, even if a state ma gay marriage legal, same-sex upl still wouldn’t be able to file e tax jotly, sponsor spo for immigratn benefs or receive spoal Social Secury payments, among many other act was a huge setback for the marriage equaly movement, but transient good news arose three months later: Hawaii Judge Kev S.

Phg for Change: Civil Unns The next saw a whirlwd of activy on the gay marriage ont, begng wh the year 2000 when Vermont beme the first state to legalize civil unns, a legal stat that provis most of the state-level benefs of years later, Massachetts beme the first state to legalize gay marriage when the Massachetts Supreme Court led that same-sex upl had the right to marry Goodridge v. Kansas and Texas were next 2005, and 2006 saw seven more stat passg Constutnal amendments agast gay towards the end of the , gay marriage beme legal var stat, cludg Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont (the first state to approve by legislative means) and New Hampshire.

OBAMA BE 1ST PRINT TO SUPPORT GAY ‘MARRIAGE’

Domtic Partnerships Throughout the and the begng of the next, California equently ma headl for seawg on the gay marriage state was the first to pass a domtic partnership statute 1999, and legislators tried to pass a same-sex marriage bill 2005 and 2007.

GAY RIGHTS

For the first time the untry’s history, voters (rather than judg or legislators) Mae, Maryland, and Washgton approved Constutnal amendments permtg same-sex marriage marriage also beme a feral issue 2010, Massachetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, found Sectn 3 of DOMA—the part of the 1996 law that fed marriage as a unn between one man and one woman—to be unnstutnal.

OBAMA BE FIRST U.S. PRINT TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

Wdsor, nservative Jtice Anthony Kennedy sid wh Jtic Ruth Bar Gsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan favor of same-sex marriage rights, ultimately makg gay marriage legal across the natn June this time, was still outlawed only 13 stat, and more than 20 other untri had already legalized gay marriage, startg wh the Netherlands December 2000.

Senate mpaign, addg, “but what I also believe is that we have an obligatn to make sure that gays and lbians have the rights of cizenship that afford them visatns to hospals, that allow them to transfer property to each other, to make sure they’re not discrimated agast on the job. ” He wrote: “And I was remd that is my obligatn, not only as an elected official a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to rema open to the possibily that my unwillgns to support gay marriage is misguid … that J’ ll to love one another might mand a different ncln. One high-profile opponent of gay rights was sger and former Miss Oklahoma Ana Bryant who found the group Save Our Children and mpaigned to repeal lol ordanc that prohibed discrimatn based on sexual orientatn.