GAY MARRIAGE

It's not so simple.  Whichever way you look at it, it's a dilemma.  Here was this friend of mine at the gym this morning, gay, pleading with the president: Please, do NOT come out in support of gay marriage--at least until after the election.  And many others are doing everything they can to force his hand.

I myself do not for one moment believe that Obama is opposed to gay marriage.  He made clear his opposition to the North Carolina Amendment 1, which voters (shamefully, in my view) approved yesterday.  He has said his thinking on the matter is "evolving."  Okay.  I don't actually believe that, either.  He stands charged by many liberal-minded people, I think justly, with equivocation.  Those on the left are quick to blame him for timidity on an issue of importance to them.  They fault him for an absence of leadership.

I don't agree that it's a matter of timidity, I think it's rather a matter of judgment, a matter of patience and political discernment.  Obama is cautious.  And why not?  I happen to think that's an asset rather than a deficit.  The same people who blame Obama for his caution are those who readily blamed his predecessor for a lack of it.  Leadership is not a matter of blurting out every thought or dashing into action on the slimmest of evidence: this led us into war.

And there is, here, an overriding concern.  The November election promises to be a very tight one.  I would not want the president to do or say one single thing that could jeopardize his return to office.  The alternative is simply too appalling--and at this point it's about more than the issues: Gov. Romney's mendacity and weakness become more apparent by the day.  So I'm with today's letter-writer on the editorial page of the New York Times who wrote the following: "I suspect that, like me and like Mr. Biden, [the president] has absolutely no problem with gay marriage--but it is in the overwhelming interest of all of us that he be re-elected."

As is so often the case, it is those with the best intentions who are capable of doing the most harm.