In a segment called Keeping them
Honest: Politics of Gay Marriage, Anderson Cooper, host of CNN's
Anderson Cooper 360, asked the question: Will President Barack
Obama back gay marriage during a New York City gay fundraiser on
Thursday?
The question has become more pointed
since Tuesday's airing since the New York Senate, the final hurdle to
legalizing gay marriage in the Empire State, appears
likely to take up a vote on Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed
legislation, possibly as early as Thursday.
“New questions are being raised about
what the president actually believes about gay marriage and whether
his public opposition to it is real or just political posturing,”
Cooper said in the segment.
Cooper noted that Obama favored
marriage equality as an Illinois senator in a 1996 survey, but in
2008 he told a group of Christian conservatives that he believed
marriage is a “sacred union” “between a man and a woman,” and
added that he favors civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, a
position he holds today. Obama has since said he's “evolving” on
the issue of marriage equality. (The video is embedded in the right
panel of this page.)
The president's motorcade is expected
to create havoc as it winds its way to the Democratic National
Committee's sold-out $1,250-a-ticket Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender
Gala dinner at the Midtown Sheraton, where actor Neil Patrick Harris
will serve as host.
A second opportunity for the president
to “evolve” on gay marriage will come at a Gay Pride reception at
the White House next week.