In a strained exchange between Alaska
Governor Sarah Palin and her opponent Senator Joe Biden during
Thursday's first and only vice presidential debate, Palin said she is
“tolerant” of gays and lesbians.
When debate moderator and PBS anchor
Gwen Ifill asked the candidates if they supported granting benefits
to same sex couples, Biden answered that he believed gay couples
deserve equal rights under the law.
“Absolutely, positively. Look, in
an Obama-Biden administration there will be absolutely no distinction
from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same
sex and a heterosexual couple. The fact of the matter is that under
the constitution we should be granted – same sex couples should be
able to have visitation right in the hospital, joint ownership of
property, life insurance policies, etc. That's only fair; it's what
the constitution calls for. And so we do support, we do support,
making sure that committed couples in a same sex marriage are
guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their
property rights, their right to visitation, their rights to
insurance, their rights to ownership, as heterosexual couples do,”
Biden answered.
Ifill then turned to Palin and asked if
she supports granting benefits to same sex couples.
“Well not if it goes closer and
closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage
between one man and one woman, and unfortunately that's sometimes
where those steps lead,” Palin responded.
Palin, however, quickly pulled back on
her answer a bit and clarified herself as being “tolerant” of
gays and lesbians.
“I want to clarify, if there is any
suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but
tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing
relationships that they deem best for themselves. You know, I am
tolerant, and I have a very diverse family and group of friends. And
even within that group you would see some who would not agree with me
on this issue. Some very dear friends who do not agree with me on
this issue. But in that tolerance also ... no one would ever propose
– not in a McCain-Palin administration - to do anything to
prohibit say visitation in a hospital, or contracts being signed,
negotiated between parties.”
“But I will tell Americans straight
up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one
man and one woman,” Palin said.
Ifill then asked Biden if he supported
gay marriage, who answered he does not.
Gay groups have been upset with Palin
since Wednesday, when she told Katie Couric in a CBS interview that
being gay was a “choice.”
“I have one of my absolute best
friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her
dearly,” Palin told Couric. “And she is not my 'gay friend', she
is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that
isn't a choice that I have made. But I am not going to judge
people.”
“While it is encouraging that Palin
has a gay friend, we are still disturbed that a person on the cusp of
enormous power could hold such backward and unscientific views,”
said Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a group
dedicated to ending the ex-gay movement. “We hope Palin will
choose to educate herself so she will learn that being gay is not a
casual choice.”