David Axelrod: Barack Obama was always a supporter of same sex marriage.

Courtesy of Time Magazine:

Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics. 

“I’m just not very good at bullshitting,” Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book. 

Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes.

The article goes on to characterize this as a "flip flop" and a "black mark" on the President's record as a progressive, and I heard much the same yesterday by some MSNBC commentators.

But I disagree.

It is impossible at this point to argue against the fact that this President has helped to usher in more rights for the gay community than any other president in history, and that by the end of his term he will have done for the LGBT community what President Johnson did for the African American community in the 1960's.

And I think it is also impossible to argue against the fact if candidate Obama had come out in support of gay marriage that it is very likely he would have lost the nomination, or "shudder" lost the general to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

And how much progress do you think the LGBT community would have enjoyed under THAT administration? (Actually would there even be an America left in which to have this debate?)

Look politicians manipulate the truth for their constituents all of the time. Obama was not denying any personal wrong doing, or covering up for a crime, he was simply adopting a political strategy that he needed in order to get the job that would help him to make real change in this country, and do far more for the LGBT community than could be accomplished by a failed presidential candidate.

That's not so much devious, as smart.

 By the way the President has spoken out about this the other day as well: 

“I think David is mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue,” Obama said. “I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there.”

Okay isn't that kind of what Axelrod was saying?

“Where my evolution took place was not in my attitude toward same-sex couples, it was in understanding the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine, where they’d say, “You know what, if you’re not calling it marriage, it doesn’t feel like the same thing,” Obama told BuzzFeed. 

Clearly the President is affirming that his personal belief was that ALL Americans should be able to marry who they wanted and enjoy the legal protections that come with that legal union, but was struggling with what Christians in this country would accept at the time he ran for office.

Once again, sounds perfectly reasonable to me.