The Los Angeles Times reports that during a press conference Wednesday, in the wake of the Senate repeal of the military policy prohibiting openly gay service personal, President Obama was asked “is it intellectually consistent to say that gay and lesbians should be able to fight to die for this country but they should not be able to marry the people they love?” Obama answered:
With respect to the issue of whether gays and lesbians should be able to get married, I’ve spoken about this recently. As I’ve said, my feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this. I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions. And they are extraordinary people, and this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about.
At this point, what I’ve said is, is that my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have. And I think -- and I think that’s the right thing to do. But I recognize that from their perspective it is not enough, and I think is something that we’re going to continue to debate and I personally am going to continue to wrestle with going forward.
Obama Tuesday, told the Advocate that he believes the next legislative manoeuvres on gay rights are the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as that existing only between a man and a woman, and a passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would make it illegal for employers to make any and all decisions regarding hiring, firing, promoting and/or paying someone based on his or her sexual orientation.
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