Sorry, Obama, just because you’re cool doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell you when you’re wrong.
The comments in this thread on Pharyngula linked to a video of Barack Obama talking about gay marriage, prompting this from me, which I am also sending to him via his website:
I was dismayed to hear about the comments you made on the topic of gay marriage in New Hampshire in January. You mentioned your parents’ interracial marriage and the fact that couples like them had to fight for their marriages to be recognized, but the rest of your comments undermined everything that they fought for in the ’60s and that gay people are fighting for now.
“Separate but equal” is not okay. You may consider marriage a religious phenomenon, but the fact that the government is involved in it means that it *can’t* be defined or restricted on religious grounds. We do not have an established state religion in America, and with good reason. Christianity does not have nor deserve the authority to make these determinations.
Trying to stick the gays in a “civil union” ghetto is *not* okay. They deserve nothing less than entry to the same institution and access to all the same rights and privileges as straight people have.
