The bias is truly amazing

On Tuesday, North Carolina voters overwhelmingly chose to amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. North Carolina is the 32 state to vote this way. The next day, president Obama announced that he is now in favor of same sex marriage but thinks that the matter is one for the individual states to decide. After that came the reaction.

So far today, I have read four articles about the backlash developing to the North Carolina vote. The latest is this one over at Yahoo. According to the article, tourism in the Tarheell state will take a big hit because of the vote. Who knows, maybe after the Obama turnabout on the issue, the Democrats will cancel their big convention in Charlotte this summer. After all, the convention will be the single biggest visitor draw to North Carolina this year.

Meanwhile, I have also read repeated articles about how Obama's new position was courageous and ground-breaking. Really? It is true that Obama is the first sitting president to come out for gay marriage even if he then says that he cannot do anything about it since it is a state matter. Nevertheless, Obama already supported gay marriage publicly back in the 1990's. When he ran for different offices, his views morphed to fit the electorate of the day. In 2008, he was strongly against gay marriage. Now, after his "evolution" he is strongly for it (except, of course, if that position would require him to do anything.)

Obama is far from courageous on this issue. It seems to me that pandering is a better description. First we read all the articles how the gay community is withholding campaign contributions from Obama. Suddenly, Obama has a change of heart. The change was so obviously a response to fund raising dificulties that one newspaper called it "gay for pay".

I live in one of the few states that allow gay marriage. We are still here and the world did not end. It is no big deal. Honesty and the courage to tell the truth, however, are a big deal. Is there anyone out there who actually believes that Obama really changed his mind on gay marriage each time he ran for a different office? Was is courageous to modify a supposedly strongly held position in order to increase campaign contributions from an interest group? And shouldn't we have the right to expect the press to actually report on the subject accurately?