Will Obama's views on same-sex marriage ever stop evolving?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Obama is apparently "still working" on his views on same-sex marriage. He has previously said that his views are "evolving."

Officially, he backs civil unions but not marriages for gays and lesbians, which is just another way of denying equal rights. (An alternative, which I support, is to do away with secular marriage altogether, replacing it with civil unions for all couples, straight or gay. Marriage could then be a purely religious bond requiring no role for the state other than to affirm religious marriages as legal unions.)

In a related development, I'm still working on losing ever more respect for Obama the deeper we go into his presidency.

Oh, I'll support him next year, and I'll even defend much of his record (much of which is quite impressive, contrary to what you might have heard), but he's not exactly making it easy for me (and I'm hardly alone on this), even if I suspect a bit of dishonest political opportunism here -- in private, is he really such a wishy-washy fool on gay rights?