In case you missed it, over the past week a narrative circulated among the professional blogosphere that there was disagreement at the very top of the Democratic party over the issue of including marriage equality as part of the party's official 2012 platform. Some even claimed it was the Obama campaign that was resisting including equality as a campaign issue.
Based mostly on speculation and conjecture, this narrative does not hold up scrutiny. And if you judge based only on the president's record up to this point, I'm not sure why there was even a doubt.
To reiterate this, the spokesperson for OFA North Carolina issued a statement yesterday on the president's opposition to a North Carolina ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage.
"While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples. That's what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do -- it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples -- and that's why the President does not support it," Cameron French, Obama for America North Carolina campaign spokesman, said in a statement reported by the News & Observer in North Carolina.
Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed, the Defense of Marriage Act is no longer being defended by the Department of Justice, the only openly-gay federal judges currently sitting on the bench were appointed by President Obama, and the openly-gay founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights sat at the table with the president and British Prime Minister David Cameron during the state dinner. And the American Foundation for Equal Rights, by the way, is funding the opposition to Proposition 8 in California.
This president has been more friendly to the LGBT community than any previous president, and at this point to suggest otherwise you have to essentially ignore the record as it stands.
Keeping pressure on your elected officials to advance progress does not mean treating them like an enemy when they are clearly on your side.