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Comment by _yosefk | Hacker News Reader

Erm... you mean anti-gay fundamentalists like Obama? (From the article: "The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage... the administration has supported Saudi Arabia on other fronts, including providing the country with targeting intelligence and logistical support for its war in Yemen.")

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I did not claim that every SA supporter in the US government was a Christian fundamentalist.

Well, either the Obama administration is composed of puppets of anti-gay fundamentalists (puppets who lit the White House in rainbow colors upon the SCOTUS deciding that gay marriage bans were unconstitutional), or perhaps their relationship with Saudi Arabia is motivated by reasons other than supposedly shared religious fundamentalism, and in fact religious fundamentalism has nothing to do with this.

(Incidentally, the majority of wars, adjusted by the number of victims, as well as the majority of repressive actions against citizens by their own states throughout the last century were initiated by people whom you could more accurately describe as anti-religious fundamentalists than religious fundamentalists. It could be that religious fundamentalism, bad as it is, is not necessarily the main theme in every bad event in history, but just one of the many variations on the main theme.)

Obama in 2008 said that gay marriage should be a states' rights issue, and that he personally believed marriage is between one man and one woman. The fact that he and his administration later supported gay marriage just shows that they're canny politicians.

You mean he was honest before he was ever elected president and needed votes, and now that he can no longer be elected and in this sense has nothing to lose, came the dishonesty? Is it not imaginable that, being a canny politician, he was dishonest then and is more honest now?

Why either extreme? He chose the battles to fight then, and later realized that the battle needed to be fought in federal court after all. As well, supporting marriage equality doesn't have to entail agreeing with it. I have to support the right that bigots have to exercise their hate speech on television, but I do not have to agree with them, nor do I have to defend their position.

I think the real extreme is a guy flip flops on an issue and someone assumes it's all sincere. Much more extreme than arguing which was the time when he wasn't. I guess I'm jealous as I never found a politician or a movement I liked enough to see no fault in them, in fact I've never even got to vote for someone who didn't make me a bit sick, nor heard about a politician in any of the countries far, far away who'd give me such an opportunity as a voter had I been a citizen there.

The first part might very well be from Obama the constitutional lawyer, meaning that it believes that the federal government has no place on defining what a marriage is and is not. And the 2nd part might very well be from Obama himself, believing that "marriage" especially in the "traditional/religious" sense is a bond between a Man and a Woman doesn't mean you object to gay men, women, and transsexuals from being "married" in the legal sense of the way.

The Administration supported the fact that states are not allowed to ban gay marriage that in a sense actually matches what both "Obama's" said previously. And as long as gay couples can receive the same legal protection and benefits of any other "married" couple through any means I myself consider them to be equal in the eyes of the law and that anything beyond that is a fight for symbolism and semantics which while I do not object too I also do not actively support or take part in.

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