Ending months of equivocation, President Barack Obama
declared his support for gay marriage on Wednesday, an announcement fraught
with history that also injects a potentially polarizing issue into the 2012
race for the White House.
"I have hesitated on gay marriage in part because I
thought that civil unions would be sufficient," Obama said in an interview
with ABC at the White House. He added that, "I was sensitive to the fact
that for a lot of people the word `marriage' was something that invokes very
powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth."
Now, he said, "it is important for me personally to go
ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married."
Obama's announcement cheered gay rights groups who have long
urged him to support gay marriage. It also opened up a new area of disagreement
with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who opposes gay marriage.
Polling suggests the nation is evenly divided on the issue.
Obama spoke about his support for gay marriage in deeply
personal terms, saying his young daughters, Malia and Sasha, have friends whose
parents are same-sex couples.
"Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow
their friends' parents would be treated different," Obama said. "It
doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a
change in perspective."
Obama said his wife Michelle Obama was also involved in his
decision and joins him in supporting gay marriage.
"In the end the values that I care most deeply about
and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people," he said.
Acknowledging that his support for same-sex marriage may
rankle religious conservatives, Obama said he thinks about his faith in part
through the prism of the Golden Rule - treating others the way you would want
to be treated.
"That's what we try to impart to our kids and that's
what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in
being true to those precepts, the better I'll be as a as a dad and a husband
and hopefully the better I'll be as president," Obama said
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