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Gay Marriage: Is Obama Really About To Announce His Support?

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Is President Obama about to announce his support for including same-sex couples in the institution of marriage? Has President Obama completed his process of “evolving,” at least enough to say he now  “believes” in marriage equality? Is he paving the way, testing the waters, or just teasing?

All of a sudden there are some well-place serious rumblings, and while the LGBT community has suffered far too much teasing a-la Sally Field’s “You like me, you really, really, like me!,” these may be more strategic than we’ve seen before.

First, there’s Richard Socarides, currently president of Equality Matters, who, as one of the highest-level openly gay senior advisors, advised President Bill Clinton on LGBT issues. Socarides just penned a piece in the New Yorker that suggests that, “now, the remarkable new reality for Obama in this election is that supporting marriage equality is smart politics.”

A majority of independents and young voters already favor equal marriage rights. These are important voting blocks, and a key part of the President’s reëlection strategy. Support for gay rights will also help him energize liberals in the Party and others who think he has not acted boldly around core progressive issues such as immigration and the environment and on other civil-rights issues. Hard-right conservatives who strongly oppose marriage rights, meanwhile, will never support Obama anyway.

Socarides details several court cases that have supported or likely will support LGBT civil rights, and suggests that for Obama, there is really no choice.

If these federal appellate rulings come down in favor of gay rights, and especially if they are unambiguous in holding that the Constitution requires full access to civil marriage, the President will need to honor and abide by those rulings. Having a Democratic President, an African American at that, on the “wrong” side of federal-appeals-court rulings on civil rights is an untenable situation.

Then, there’s this.

Obama just sent a congratulations letter (image, top) to one of the first same-sex couples to marry under New York state’s new marriage equality law. Matt and Aaron Katz received this letter from President Obama, congratulating them on their “special occasion.” While it does not specifically state “marriage,” what’s curious is that the Katz’s have no known affiliation to the White House, nor have they been in the news. It appears to be a thoroughly random act — and frankly, the administration does not have time to hang out on Flickr and come across photos of the Katz’s same-sex wedding, then decide out of thin air and against administration policy to send them a note.

Buzzfeed, which also published a copy of the letter, writes that the Katz’s “have no idea why they received the card.”

Matt says, “I’m not sure why the letter got sent to us. Aaron and I were married on July 24th at Borough Hall. However, we had our wedding ceremony on July 23rd at my dad’s house the day before. Maybe word got out that we were outlaws for a day?”

And if that’s not enough to at least whet your palate, yesterday Politico, in a report titled, “Barack Obama preps pitch to gay voters,” noted,

It seemed at first a major violation of message discipline: Shaun Donovan, President Barack Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development, “absolutely” endorsed same-sex marriage in an interview last month, a position in contrast with his boss, who famously declared that his own views on the issue are “evolving.”

Perhaps more remarkable than Donovan’s statement is what happened in its aftermath: Nothing.

Chalk it up as just more toes-in-the-water testing for the Obama administration.

Politico adds,

Among gay activists, the Obama administration’s recent actions — including what they perceive as a signal from someone like Donovan — have fueled speculation that Obama may finally take a step they say would energize a core constituency and strengthen a largely positive but occasionally strained political relationship.

“The initial question the president faces is, does he come out for same sex marriage now or after the election?” said Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, a gay rights organization. With polls trending toward public acceptance of gays and lesbians tying the knot, he said, “it may be riskier to wait.”

Endorsing gay marriage now, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote recently, could help Obama win back skeptical moderate voters and rekindle flagging enthusiasm among young people, who broadly support marriage equality.

“Mr. President, what better moment will there be? [Next year] you might lose,” she wrote.

Advocates argue that support for gay marriage could be Obama’s secret weapon for the 2012 election.

Is President Obama about to announce his support for same-sex marriage equality?

Maybe.

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Trump Slammed for ‘Bragging’ He Kicked Millions Off Food Stamps

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February 24, 2026

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President Donald Trump was blasted during his State of the Union address after he declared that he has “lifted 2.4 million Americans — a record — off of food stamps.”

Critics noted that in his 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump cut billions of dollars from food stamps, also known as SNAP, and put in regulations making it harder for recipients to stay on the program.

“Trump didn’t ‘lift’ anyone off food stamps—he kicked them off,” wrote U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). “He’s forcing millions to go hungry. She also noted that SNAP is “not charity, it’s an investment.”

“Interesting way to say he kicked people off of SNAP,” said Democratic Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois.

Senate Budget Committee Democrats also slammed the president’s remarks.

“Republicans *cut* food funding for 3 MILLION hungry Americans making it harder for struggling families to put food on the table. All to fund more tax breaks for billionaires,” they wrote.

“Trump cut millions of people’s food assistance and is bragging about it,” said U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI).

The progressive social media account The Tennessee Holler added, “He spelled ‘kicked’ wrong.”

Image via Reuters

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Trump Confronted With Sign Saying ‘Black People Aren’t Apes’ at State of the Union

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7 hours ago

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February 24, 2026

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President Donald Trump was confronted with a sign held by a Democratic congressman that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes,” as he entered the chamber and began to deliver his State of the Union address.

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) held up the sign before House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tried to remove it from him. Minutes later, as the president was speaking, Green was reportedly removed from the chamber.

The sign apparently referred to video President Trump posted to his Truth Social account that included a meme of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The video received widespread bipartisan condemnation before Trump removed it. He refused to apologize for it.

 

 

 

 

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GOP Infighting Threatens to Derail Party’s 2026 Agenda

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9 hours ago

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February 24, 2026

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Republicans in Congress are so divided they may not be able to pass legislation to further President Donald Trump‘s and the Republican Party’s agenda — namely, a budget reconciliation bill that builds on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

GOP lawmakers are attempting to stuff a legislative package with a wide variety of goals, including health care reform, tax cuts for the working class, voting legislation, and methods to reduce the deficit.

According to The Hill, “none of those legislative goals has the same support across the Senate and House GOP conferences that tax reform and major defense and homeland security spending initiatives had last year.”

A massive budget reconciliation bill does not appear to appeal to the president.

“It’s a tacit recognition that Trump is unlikely to muster the near-unanimous votes he needs to pass major partisan bills through Congress at a time when the federal debt has ballooned to nearly $39 trillion and Republicans up for reelection in swing states are worried about facing Democratic attack ads in the fall,” The Hill noted.

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“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a plan for a second reconciliation bill and I don’t know how you could do one in the House,” a Republican senator, referring to the GOP House’s razor-thin majority, told The Hill. “The president says it’s not a good idea. At the moment, I don’t see reconciliation as a likely aspect of the remaining months this year.”

Some Republicans in the Senate appear to be ignoring the odds and are pushing forward — they just can’t agree on what they want to include in the legislative package.

“I don’t care how we do it but we’ve got to get health care costs down. The best way to do it is get the consumer involved,” said U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who wants to funnel taxpayer dollars into individual health savings accounts called Trump Health Freedom Accounts.

“I believe that we can do this. We’re going to be up here the rest of the year. We got to get some things done,” Scott added. “The American public demands that we accomplish some things.”

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) wants to go in a different direction — finding funding to restore the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that Republicans let lapse in the fall against Democratic support for the programs.

“I do want them addressed. I’m very concerned that people are losing their insurance, they simply can’t afford it. We do need to reform the whole health care system and bring down the costs,” Collins said.

It may all come down to process.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune “doesn’t want to risk a protracted negotiation over a budget reconciliation bill only to have it blow up on the Senate floor — an embarrassment that befell the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act during the first year of Trump’s first term in 2017.”

READ MORE: ‘Orwellian Gaslighting’: Trump CIA Slammed for Retractions of ‘Biased’ Reports

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

 

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