The Gay President

It was impossible to miss this week’s cover of Newsweek: a shocking title in capital letters under a photo of Barack Obama with a rainbow-colored halo hanging over his head.

Inside, renowned American columnist Andrew Sullivan compares the current American president to Lyndon Johnson, by referencing what John F. Kennedy’s successor did for blacks.

Andrew Sullivan, who is himself gay, said he cried last week when he heard his president announce that he was in favor of marriage between same-sex partners. He is not the only one to be moved by this symbolic declaration because it is historic and because the president, who has sometimes lacked guts (particularly against Wall Street), made a courageous gesture.

It’s certainly a calculated risk for this Democratic politician. It will allow him to bring in more money from the gay community. But it is nevertheless a risk.

At less than six months before the presidential election, it raises an important question: What if the votes that Barack Obama doesn’t receive because of his controversial stance made the difference? For a week now, American political analysts have been obsessed with this question. No one can affirm this with certainty, but everything seems to indicate that he will lose votes.

According to the results of a New York Times/CBS poll released on Tuesday, 26 percent of Americans are less likely to vote for him because of his change of position on gay marriages. Only 16 percent say they are more inclined to support him. And a majority believes that he acted less out of conviction than for “political reasons.”

The difference a few thousand votes can make should not be underestimated in a presidential election, especially now that many states have already expressed their opposition to gay marriage.

Case in point, North Carolina: 24 hours before the interview with the president on ABC, a large majority of electors from the state (61 percent) voted in favor of an amendment to the state constitution that would prohibit marriage between same-sex partners.

This is a state that can tip the balance in either the Democratic or Republican candidate’s favor in the November 6 election. In 2008, Barack Obama snatched up a victory there against John McCain with 49.9 percent of the votes against his rival’s 49.5 percent, a 14,000-vote difference.

So what got into Barack Obama? What could have pushed him to jump right in the middle of this controversial issue? Part of the response to this question can be found in another interview with the Democratic president in 2008.

While still a candidate, he said he wanted to be a “transformative” president like Ronald Reagan was in the ‘80s. This charismatic Republican knew how to put his country “on a fundamentally different” path, affirmed the Democratic politician at the time.

Ronald Reagan also managed to transform the attitudes of his citizens regarding government (by demonizing it) and blew a wind of conservatism over the country that still rattles even the most progressive Americans.

The call for tolerance launched by Barack Obama is that of a man who was a victim of discrimination himself due to the color of his skin. It’s also a move to inoculate Ronald Reagan’s heirs with the virus of change.