President Barack Obama called for equal rights for gay couples Thursday, but stopped short of voicing support for legalizing same-sex marriage at a gala LGBT fundraiser held in the heart of a state whose legislature is on the verge of taking a vote on the issue.
The president couched the notion of rights for the nation’s gay community in the framework of civil rights, casting his own election as part of an evolutionary process in the nation over the last two-and-a-half years, one that also involved economic woes and overseas wars.
In fact, the president spent the first half of his speech on standard stump touchstones — the nation’s lost jobs, the impact on the middle class, the killing of Osama bin Laden.
And instead of discussing his stand on the issue — one on which his aides have said he’s “evolving” — the president described the battle underway in New York as a hallmark of democracy. He described states as the correct setting for such debates to play out.
But even as he and the event’s hosts ticked off a list of legislative items that had favored the gay community — emcee Neil Patrick Harris, who Obama joked was “openly terrific,” described him as the most gay-friendly president in history — some in the crowd were clearly looking for more.
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