President Barack Obama “evolving”
from supporting civil unions to marriage for gay and lesbian couples
has been named a top Democratic moment of 2012 by MSNBC.
Obama endorsed gay marriage in May,
just days after North Carolina voters approved a constitutional
amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.
“I had hesitated on gay marriage, in
part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama
explained in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts. “I've just
concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead
and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get
married.”
In an end-of-the-year profile with Time
declaring Obama its “person of the year,” the president including
his support for gay rights as one of his proudest achievements.
“One of the things that I'm very
proud of during my first four years is I think I've helped to
solidify this incredibly rapid transformation in people's attitudes
around LGBT issues – how we think about gays and lesbians and
transgender persons,” Obama said. “A lot of that just has to do
with the fact that if you talk to Malia [Obama], the idea of making
an anti-gay remark at her school is just unimaginable. They just
don't get that.”