Satan Himself Is Now More Progressive Than Obama On Gay Rights

Oh dear:

Dick Cheney rarely takes a position that places him at a more progressive tilt than President Obama. But on Monday, the former vice president did just that, saying that he supports gay marriage as long as it is deemed legal by state and not federal government.

Speaking at the National Press Club for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards, Cheney was asked about recent rulings and legislative action in Iowa and elsewhere that allowed for gay couples to legally wed.

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone," replied the former V.P. "As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. ... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

Obama can continue to be, as some have called him, a "very rational sounding sort of bigot," or he can choose to not let evil incarnate usurp the moral high ground on him on a human rights issue.

While it's true that most in the country don't back same sex marriage rights, it's also true that, for the most part, people aren't going to care enough about the issue to actually defeat President Obama in an election if he were to come out in favor of them. The fact is, the 2004 election was the last election where the issue became a big deal, and it became one with the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, being too much of a coward (on that, and a ton of other issues), to even consistently campaign against the various state same-sex marriage bans being proposed.

Since then, the evangelical base just hasn't turned out over the issue to the benefit of the Republicans, because they have bigger stuff to deal with. They decided that they wanted to have a job more than they hated gay people. And now, with Obama's tremendous political capital, is a prime time for him to become a real gay rights advocate.

Yet it isn't really up to him. It's up to us to make it politically impossible for him to not step up on the issue, just as Dr. King did to Lyndon Johnson.