The board of the NAACP, the “nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization,” endorsed marriage equality at a meeting this afternoon. The move comes 10 days after President Obama announced his support of same-sex marriage.
The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes about gays and lesbians in the African American community are changing rapidly. A recent poll found that 54% of African Americans supported President Obama’s recent decision.
Maxim Thorne, formerly of the NAACP, broke the news over Twitter…
NAACP Endorses Marriage Equality
[C]onservatives are asserting that we cannot extend equal rights to all Americans and fix the economy [at the same time]. In the process, they are deliberately insinuating that the twin goals are somehow contradictory…
[W]ould anyone retroactively argue that America should have opposed the campaign to let women vote because the economy was so bad in the early 20th century? Would anyone insist that lawmakers should have halted civil rights legislation in the 1960s because there was a simultaneous need for a War on Poverty? Probably not, because most of us recognize such arguments for what they are: diversionary non-sequiturs whose real goal is to preserve institutional bigotry and prejudice.
That’s the same objective of today’s GOP when it comes to rights for same sex couples.
Yes, We Can Walk and Chew Gum: The GOP notion that we can’t pursue gay rights while fixing the economy is a red herring.
If the president did endorse gay marriage “for politics”— because it’s increasingly popular and decreasingly toxic —that in itself marks tremendous progress for the nation… But I don’t think his personal feelings matter much, or those of Dick Cheney, Ken Mehlman or the growing list of politicians who find marriage inequality untenable… What matters is that the nation is undergoing a rapid breakthrough and is increasingly ready for marriage equality…
In American politics, there’s a recurring fantasy, nurtured by the press, about “courageous” politicians who do the right thing against their political interest. But really, isn’t it even more encouraging when the right thing has just become good politics?
Did Obama Endorse Gay Marriage for Political Reasons? Good.
You can criticize Obama for taking too long or not going far enough on marriage equality, but criticizing him for doing something for political reasons is just stupid. There’s a political calculation in everything a politician does.
![Bill Maher mocks Romney over ‘traditional marriage’
[Maher] said he was confused by a recent Newsweek cover that declared Obama was the “first gay president.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Maher said. “It comes from what Toni Morrison said years ago, that Clinton was the first black president. But she said he was the first black president because she said so many things about him were similar to the black experience.”
“What about Obama is gay? I don’t understand why this translates. What does he do that is gay?”
Maher then turned his attention to Romney, blasted his “rectum-derived” claim that marriage between a man and a woman was the cornerstone of civilization.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m46b5hc20R1qztsh3o1_1280.jpg)
