Same-Sex Marriage: Obama Will Support Marriage Equality – When, Not If
As President Obama descends upon Manhattan Thursday afternoon to attend three Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraisers — including “Gala with the Gay Community,” an LGBT Democratic fundraiser — Democratic lawmakers in Albany are doing everything they can to vote on Governor Cuomo’s same-sex marriage bill, while Republican lawmakers are doing everything they can to stop the bill from coming to the floor for a vote. Meanwhile, as the President walks into the Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan at 5:30, dozens, and possibly hundreds of LGBT activists, organized by three major LGBT grassroots activist organizations, will participate in “A Demonstration for Full LGBT Equality,” to “give the LGBT community and their allies an opportunity to gather together in unity as they raise the urgency for full LGBT equality now.” And while Obama isn’t officially the target, his mere presence makes him so.
“I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are in powerful long-lasting gay or lesbians unions,” Obama has said, acknowledging that it is “something that means a lot to them.”
“My baseline is a strong civil union that affords them legal protections,” Obama said just after signing the DADT repeal bill into law.”I recognize from their perspective, it’s not enough.”
In July, 2010, President Obama took a moment to say goodbye to departing Associate Counsel to the President Alison J. “Ali” Nathan, (photo above, left,) and Meg Satterthwaite, and their twin sons Oliver and Nathan, in the Outer Oval Office. In March of this year, President Obama nominated the former Associate Counsel for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
“Alison Nathan is a distinguished individual who has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to justice throughout her career,â€Â said President Obama. “I am grateful for her decision to serve the American people from the District Court bench.â€
President Obama will get asked, either by a reporter, a heckler, or a demonstrator — or all three — if he has “evolved” in his stance on same-sex marriage equality, a position that he has said he “wrestles” with. In fact, media reports now say he is prepared to answer.
And he better have an answer. Activists from GetEQUAL — the people who literally chained themselves to the White House fence over and over and over until DADT repeal legislation was passed — Queer Rising, and Join The Impact, all very effective grass-roots activist organizations, will be out in force awaiting the president this evening.
But short of Obama announcing full support for full, equal, civil marriage, the LGBT community, our supporters and allies, and, indeed, 53% of the American people will not be happy about his answer.
In a world where everyone has a position on everything, and in a world where the most anti-gay bigot can easily — and, fairly accurately — state that their position on marriage equality is the same as the President of the United States, a president arguably among the most liberal in a generation or two, or three, Obama must stand for something more.
When anti-gay marriage equality activists like Carrie Prejean, Maggie Gallagher, and David Tyree, all claim their position is the “same as the president’s,” and when an increasing number of conservative Republicans have already “evolved” further than he on the issue of marriage equality, the “hope and change” champion (not to mention the self-monikered “fierce advocate,”) is left with little choice.
Obama must stand for hope and change. And whether or not it is hard for him to embrace equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans, he really has little choice at this point.
While this president has done far more than any president in our history for the LGBT community, there is so much more that must be done. What is the hold up? Why is he waiting so long?
Consider this.
Obama, a constitutional scholar who, like it or not, in 1996 said he supported same-sex marriage, has been consistent in his belief that DOMA, Bill Clinton’s Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional, and has refused to defend it in federal court. He has signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He has extended many benefits, albeit only via executive order, and therefore, easily undone by his successor, to LGBT Americans and families.
After Obama signed into law the bill that provides the pathway to repeal of DADT, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Obama immediately began talking about DOMA and other work that needed to be done. He could have taken a victory lap and told the LGBT community he was done until after the 2012 elections, but he didn’t.
When DADT repeal was signed, Obama made it clear that he believed he had created the climate and environment that allowed all necessary parties to come together.
I believe he is doing the same with marriage equality.
As I told Politico, Obama is letting the country “see” his “struggle,” see him “wrestling” with the concept of marriage equality, see him “evolving.”
The question, I believe, is not if Obama will embrace full civil same-sex marriage equality, but when. And, if the question is when, will it be while he is still President Obama , and not private citizen Obama?
If he wants it to be as President Obama, he needs to come out in support of same-sex marriage equality now, or surely he will lose his base, and all hopes of a second term.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
