“Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union.’”UPDATE 9/29/15 - President Obama Speech: Gay Agenda Trumps Christianity
-- David Axelrod (excerpt from his book)
No, no, no . . . “[Axelrod is] mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue. . . . I think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of marriage per se isn't quite accurate.”
-- President Obama (today)
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
ObamaCare Abortion Lies: Taxpayer Study Findings
President Obama Floods Gay Agenda with Taxpayers' Money
President Obama Raises Gay Agenda above Religious Liberty
President Obama Compares Christians to Islamic Terrorists
President Obama a Christian? No, Say Two-Thirds of Americans
President Obama, Hypocrite in Chief, Holds Prayer Breakfast
Also read American Decline: President Obama's Gay Agenda vs. Christians
And read Mrs. Obama Thanks Hollywood for Gay Indoctrination
In addition, read Obama Top Homosexual Arrested for Anal Sex with Boy
-- From "Axelrod: Obama opposed gay marriage for politics" by Justin Sink, The Hill 2/10/15
David Axelrod said that he and other political strategists advised him to say that he only supported civil unions, not full gay marriage rights, according to excerpts of his new book obtained by Time magazine.
Obama apparently struggled with the task, complaining to Axelrod that he was “just not very good at bullshitting” after a campaign event where he stopped short of endorsing gay marriage.
Last year, a book by journalist Jo Becker reported that the decision in 2012 over how, if and when to roll out an announcement by Obama in favor of gay marriage was extensively debated among top political strategists.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Axelrod: Obama Misled Nation When He Opposed Gay Marriage In 2008" by Zeke J Miller, Time Magazine 2/10/15
Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
The insider’s account provides the clearest look yet at Obama’s long-established flip-flop, one of the blemishes on his record as a progressive. The admission of Obama’s embrace of deception also calls into question the President’s stated embrace of a new kind of politics in 2008, when he promised to be unlike other politicians who change their views to match the political winds. “Having prided himself on forthrightness, though, Obama never felt comfortable with his compromise and, no doubt, compromised position,” Axelrod writes. “He routinely stumbled over the question when it came up in debates or interviews.”
As a state senate candidate in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire saying “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But 12 years later as a candidate for president, Obama told Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church that marriage could only extend to heterosexual couples. “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” Obama said at the time. “Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "White House doesn't deny Axelrod coached Obama to lie about gay marriage" by Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times 2/10/15
The White House did not deny on Tuesday the revelation in David Axelrod’s new book that he coached President Barack Obama to lie about his support for gay marriage.
I asked Axelrod if the “believer in you” was comfortable in counseling Obama to modify his stand on gay marriage. I asked because that advice struck me as cynical, especially during the 2008 Obama campaign of “hope” and “change.”
“Well, this is always a delicate balance you know, because my belief was that Barack Obama as president of the United States would do more for the country and frankly more for the cause of non-discrimination than anyone else,” Axelrod said. “But he had to win, and my fear was that issue would become a distraction, so I’ll let others make value judgments about that.”
“If Obama’s views were ‘evolving’ publicly, they were fully evolved behind closed doors,” Axelrod added.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Yes, Obama Was Lying About Opposing Same-Sex Marriage" by David A. Graham, The Atlantic 2/10/15
Even in 2008, Barack Obama sharply divided Democrats and Republicans. It wasn't just a matter of policy disputes; it was a question of whether he was acting in good faith. (Prominent conservatives remain convinced that he hates America.) On one point, though, both liberals and conservatives agreed. Both sides were pretty sure Obama was lying when he said he opposed gay marriage.
There were good reasons to believe Obama was bullshitting, to use his term. In 1996, while running for Illinois state senate, he answered a question from a gay newspaper, saying, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” (In a classic political we're-stupid-not-dishonest maneuver, Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer tried to claim Obama hadn't actually filled out the survey.) While running for reelection two years later, he said he was undecided. By 2006, he was citing his Christian beliefs as a reason for opposing gay marriage but adding that he was willing to consider the idea that his stance was "misguided."
So by 2008, Obama's supposed opposition was a fiction, but it was a politically effective one. The press could and did report that Obama had previously felt otherwise, but no one could prove he was lying. Liberals remained convinced that in his heart of hearts, he was lying and would eventually publicly back marriage equality. Conservatives remained convinced that in his heart of hearts, he was lying and was just waiting to announce his backing for marriage equality. (The one group that was unwilling to abide this situation, understandably, was gay activists, who insisted that rights couldn't be a matter of patience and pressured Obama to speak out at every turn.)
. . . Sometimes, lying does pay.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Obama disputes aide David Axelrod's take on gay marriage" by The Associated Press 2/11/15
President Barack Obama is disputing a longtime aide's view that Obama feigned opposition to gay marriage, compromising his true beliefs out of concern it could hurt him with voters.
Obama told BuzzFeed News that "I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there." He added that he thought civil unions were "a sufficient way of squaring the circle," but that "the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine" changed his mind.
He indicated his support for gay marriage in a 1996 questionnaire before backtracking years later. The president called that questionnaire "an example of struggling with what was a real issue at the time, which is, how do you make sure that people's rights are enjoyed and these religious sensitivities were taken into account?"
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Obama Says He Didn’t Mislead on Gay Marriage" by Zeke J Miller, Time Magazine 2/11/15
President Barack Obama maintained in a new interview that he “evolved” on gay marriage, despite a top aide’s assertion in a new book that he was “bullshitting” in 2008 when he opposed the unions.
Obama told BuzzFeed that longtime political guru David Axelrod didn’t accurately characterize his position when Axelrod wrote in his new book that Obama shifted on the issue for political gains. But the President proved unable to explain why he moved away from supporting the unions despite supporting them as a state Senate candidate in 1996.
Asked specifically about the old questionnaire, Obama offered no explanation for why he said he supported the unions before deciding to oppose them.
“The old questionnaire, you know, is an example of struggling with what was a real issue at the time,” Obama said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Obama Didn’t Just Lie about Opposing Gay Marriage; He Kept Citing His Faith While Doing It" by Andrew Johnson, National Review Online 2/10/15
Obama’s use of faith to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage dates back to his bid for Illinois’s Senate seat in 2004. The New York Times notes that Obama began to cite religion as the reason for his position on the issue during his race against Republican Alan Keyes, suggesting that it was part of an effort to court black voters who generally opposed the redefinition of marriage. During a debate with Keyes, when pushed to explain his position on the matter, Obama emphasized his faith.
“What I believe, in my faith, is that a man and a woman when they get married are performing something before God, and it’s not simply the two persons who are meeting,” he said. He went on to praise then-president George W. Bush for his “healthy” reversal in supporting civil unions, a position candidate Obama agreed with.
Elsewhere on the Senate campaign trail, Obama echoed that position, saying he opposed same-sex marriage but not civil unions. “The term ‘marriage’ itself has strong religious roots and a strong tradition that means something special to people in this country,”? he told reporters.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's Announcement Speech [of February 2007]" by The Associated Press 2/10/07
. . . let me tell you how I came to be here. As most of you know, I am not a native of this great state. I moved to Illinois over two decades ago. I was a young man then, just a year out of college; I knew no one in Chicago, was without money or family connections. But a group of churches had offered me a job as a community organizer for $13,000 a year. . . . [It's] where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith.
. . . The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we've changed this country before. . . . [and] we're here today to take it back. The time for that politics is over. It's time to turn the page. . . . Let us transform this nation.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "16 Times The Obama Administration Lied About The President's Position On Same-Sex Marriage" by Sam Stein and Amanda Terkel, Huffington Post 2/10/15
. . . Here are 16 instances in which Obama or his team basically lied about his position:
OBAMA: "Undecided." [Answer to a questionnaire that asked, "Do you favor legalizing same-sex marriage?", 1998]
OBAMA: ". . . I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about . . ." [Windy City Times, Feb. 4, 2004]
OBAMA: "I’m a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman." [WBBM-AM, Sept. 25, 2004]
To read all 16 instances, and the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Click headlines below for further background on Barack Obama's various positions and beliefs:
Pastor Rick Warren Interviews Sens. Obama & McCain (8/17/08)
Sen. Obama Criticizes 'Traditional Black Churches' as Homophobic (5/29/08)
President Obama Tells Homosexualists: 'Welcome to your White House' (6/29/09)
President Obama Pushes Gay Agenda, but Doesn't Want Us to Know It (10/11/09)
President Obama's Ever-changing on Same-sex 'Marriage' (2/18/10)
President Obama Tells Homosexualists He's Evolving on Same-sex "Marriage" (10/28/10)
President Obama's Same-sex 'Marriage' Position: Who Knows? (6/24/11)
President Obama's Christmas: Behold, a Message is Born (12/25/14)
