Ok, so how about we take a look at a direct quote about Obama’s campaign stance on gay marriage, hmm?

I think you’ll see that Obama is in support of full legal equality for gay and straight couples.

Absolutely. Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

This sounds good, right? Notice the specific use of the words “constitutional” and “legal.” It seems to me that he uses these words precisely to specify what he’s talking about so that he can come back later and talk about a kind of marriage that is non-constitutional and non-legal.

The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted — same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That’s only fair.

It’s what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

Again he reiterates that that, from a legal standpoint, same sex couples are to be treated the same as opposite sex couples. This is a far cry from McCain’s stance, which basically “allows” us to spend thousands of dollars in lawyers fees to enter into contracts that garner us only some of the rights that opposite sex couples get with one document.

This is not a gift, McCain, we can do it already, and it doesn’t work out so well.

No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

Here’s the line that gets hisses and boos. Again, though, I think the wording here is again very deliberate. Notice how in the first sentence he says they don’t support redefining marriage “from a civil side” and how it’s up to people of faith how they define marriage. This is where that non-legal marriage idea comes in. This is where he’s reassuring the religious that the government isn’t going to come into their places of worship and telling them what to do, rewriting their holy books, etc.

This is good, because the government has nor right doing that. From the legal and constitutional standpoint, however, Biden rightly says that marriage is equal for hetero and homosexual couples.

The bottom line though is, and I’m glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that’s the case, we really don’t have a difference.

Here again, he repeats the stance of the Obama campaign; that homosexual couples are equal in the eyes of the law to heterosexual couples.

If you’ll remember, the Connecticut Supreme Court said the exact same thing a couple of years ago and left the legislature to decide how to make gay couples equal in the eyes of the law. They chose civil unions. The reports came in, civil unions were not garnering gay couples the rights they were promised by the courts and thus the courts revisited the case and determined that gay couples could not be denied access to marriage.

Honestly, the rest of the country should take this as a lesson, but this does show that civil unions are a stepping stone to marriage equality

You do not have to search hard. Last year HRC and LOGO held a forum where the candidates for the Democratic presidential nod held a forum on gay rights. We talked about that here at 365Gay

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James, busy day and all, any way you could just post Obama’s answers since you have them readily available? Thanks.

Not true at all. In the VisibleVote Presidential forum, Obama answered the very questions you wonder about. You won’t like his answers, but they are out there. On this site.

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James, I beg to differ. Obama is the most filmed, photographed, and followed politician on the planet. His every word is disected by the press, over and over again. The fact that I, or any gay person has to literally search through websites or multiple search engines just to find a quote of Obama’s about gay rights, proves my point. Obama is not outspoken about his beliefs on gay rights, he RARELY speaks about gay rights issues unless pressed to do so, and when he does, he gives conflicting answers. That is being purposefully evasive.

and ps. Help me out, post the answers Obama gave to your forum. I’d like to read Obama’s wise, sage advice on why he wants to deny my equality.

James said: He’s been saying that for the whole election.

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James, that’s why I used the word “re-iterated”. And the double talk is obvious, in that Obama on the one hand says he is against gay marriage, but on the other hand, he says he is against banning it as well. Obama wants to play both sides of the issue, and for the most part, he has been allowed to do that by the press. I rarely hear Obama asked to explain why he doesn’t believe gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Especially when Obama’s own parents would not have been allowed to marry because of the same type of divisive marriage laws that banned mixed racial marriages, and yet Obama would use the same type of divisive laws to segregate gays into a 2nd class marriage status. It’s beyond double talk, it’s purposefully evasive.

In an MTV interview entitled “Ask Obama,” which is set to air Monday (November 3) on MTV at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET. Obama again re-iterated his disaproval of gay marriage. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.” (Double talk like this would even make Mr John “I was for it before I was against it” Kerry proud).

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598407/20081101/story.jhtml