White House Communications Director Dan
Pfeiffer suggests President Barack Obama has never supported gay
marriage and that a 1996 questionnaire in which he favored the
institution was not filled out by him.
Pfeiffer made his comments during a
panel discussion with Daily Kos blogger Kaili Joy Gray at Netroots
Nation in Minneapolis.
Gray contrasted then-Senator Obama's
1996 response, in which he said that he “favor[s] legalizing
same-sex marriage, and would fight efforts to prohibit such
marriages,” and his position today of supporting civil unions for
gay and lesbian couples, then asked: “Is the president going to
evolve again and get back to supporting civil rights on gay
marriage?”
“If you actually go back and look,
that questionnaire was actually filled out by someone else, not the
president,” Pfeiffer said. “There was a long debate about this
in the campaign.”
“So, it's a fake questionnaire?”
Gray interrupted.
“Well, what I was going to tell you
is that the president's position has been consistent on this, but
what he's said ...”
“Well, hold on a minute, you're
saying that this is a fake questionnaire?” Gray asked a second
time.
“This was litigated in the campaign,”
he responded.
“So, the president has never favored
same-sex marriage?”
“The president's position on gay
marriage … he has been against it. But he has said that the
country is evolving on this and he is evolving on it.” (The video
is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Tracy Baim of Chicago gay weekly Windy
City Times denied the claim, telling
The
Huffington Post, “Even if someone else completed the form,
Obama signed it, and never denied subsequent reports of its content.”