Opposing something right because it's politically convenient isn't any more ethically defensible than opposing something you truly disagree with. You, as liberals tend to do, are giving Obama a pass -- he can't not do the right thing, by your logic.

I suspect that many Republicans nominally against gay marriage are privately for it, but the political ramifications for saying so would be much graver for an older, whiter and more religious constituency. Do we give them a pass, too?

Politicians say one thing while believing something else all the time. It's almost a qualification for the job.

I don't care about that (much). 'Twas always thus...

I'm pointing out that there are surely things 2008 Candidate Obama could have said and positions he could have taken that would have disqualified him in the eyes of many of the folks here, even if they suspected he didn't really mean them. I'd like to hope some of those would include expressing support for racial segregation or opposing interracial marriage. But many in this discussion are claiming that BE's 2008 opposition to gay marriage is morally indistinguishable from support for racial segregation or opposition to interracial marriage, and that he should be judged accordingly. Then how can they square that with a vote for Senator Obama in 2008?

The analogy with the Civil Rights Movement to end racial discrimination absolutely has some force behind it, but I don't think making that analogy ends the debate over how to treat folks on the other side.

I think it's clear that the comment you're replying to does give them a pass since he says he votes GOP.

So, being against gay marriage is so despicable that you can't even use software that is associated with organization that is run by such a vile man. But if this vile act is performed in service of being elected president of the USA, that's completely OK. Not sure I get how that works out. To me it sounds like "Did you murder this guy? - Surely, yes. - You're going to jail! - But I'm a politician, I did it to get elected! - Oh! Why didn't you tell it from the start! It's completely different then, you're free to go."

Or maybe he didn't support gay marriage then and doesn't support it now, but is scared of a ravenously malicious committee of self-appointed witch hunters who are out to destroy anyone who dares to disagree with them on their pet cause. Or maybe he just did it because certain organizations or people would give him more money for his presidential library, and he still privately disagrees with it.

I'm not sure why we assume that he's not just doing this for political expediency now if we accept that he may have held the previous position for political expediency as well.

Left-leaning folks are going to be gun-shy about third parties for a while. The memories of 2000 with Gore/Nader in Florida aren't fading all that fast.

So there's no view a Democrat could express that wouldn't disqualify him in left-leaning folks' minds? That would be depressing. Winning isn't everything.

That depends entirely on the expressed views of the person they're running against. I accept anyone I vote for is going to do things I don't like. Maybe most things. Avoiding the vote because there's no candidate that's "perfect" leads to people getting in that will do EVEN MORE things I don't like, so while winning isn't everything, it's a lot.

Winning isn't everything, no. A "loyal opposition" is an important thing - I'd love to see Eisenhower/Goldwater Republicans balancing out the Democrats.

Handing over the reins to the crazies, though, is significantly dangerous, and all candidates are going to have downsides. Obama's been wrong on gay marriage in the past, but it's quite clear that his administration has been far better for gay rights than a Republican one would have been.

A related point, though, is that the opposition is almost always characterized as "crazy" at the time.

Goldwater was portrayed as a dangerous right-winger when he was around. The famous "daisy" campaign ad [1] was anti-Goldwater after all. This crazy man is going to kill kids in a nuclear war!

He did break from the Republicans later, and once he was no longer any sort of political threat, he magically became an icon of moderation or something.

It's worth keeping in mind that in the moment, the political opposition is always portrayed in the worst possible light. It's just how politics works.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k