The 2012 campaign of President Barack
Obama has launched a Facebook ad highlighting the president's support
for all married couples.
The ad states: “President Obama
supports equal rights for all married couples: gay, lesbian and
straight. Show him he's not alone – add your name now.”
The campaign's title – Respect for
All Marriages – is suggestive of the language used in a
proposed bill that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),
the 1996 law that forbids federal agencies from recognizing the legal
marriages of gay and lesbian couples. New York Congressman Jerrold
Nadler's bill is titled The
Respect for Marriage Act.
President Obama has endorsed repeal of
DOMA.
And while the president has stopped
short of endorsing gay marriage – he says he supports civil unions
for gay couples and is “evolving” on marriage – the Facebook
campaign appears to put the president within striking distance of
endorsing full marriage.
In
blogging about the ad, John Aravosis at Americablog.com noted it
was incorrect to conclude that the president supports marriage
equality.
“What's actually going on is that the
Obama campaign, and [the] White House, have been trying to pull the
wool over the community's eyes with a little bit of rhetorical
trickery. The president is for equal rights for all couples, gay and
straight, they keep telling us. And the proof they use is that he's
for repealing DOMA (and that Facebook ad lands on a page about DOMA).
What they don't say is that the only way to get those equal rights
is for us to get married, and the president isn't for that.”
“So, the president says he supports
equal rights for all married couples, and refers to gay couples as
married in the ad, even though he opposes our marriages, which will
stop us from getting the very equal rights he claims to support,”
Aravosis wrote.
“Set your watches folks, and count
the number of seconds before this little snafu gets retracted,” he
added.