I was totally surprised by his announcement today. It is extra sweet because especially after yesterday's bitter defeat in North Carolina - where they wrote into their constitution the ban of same-sex marriage. (The last time they did something like that it was to ban inter-racial marriage.)

I can't wait to hear what my racist bigoted homophobic neighbor thinks. (She is black and I overheard her spend hours and hours pleading with people on the phone to remove the right of same-sex marriage. She must be in an awful tizzy.)

I've spent about 26 years working for Marriage Equality (Same-Sex marriage, Inter-Racial Marriage, Divorced allow to re-marry, not stoning women who are not virgins, etc.) so this is great news indeed.

What are your views on marriage as a personal contract?

I personally don't think the Government should have any involvement in marriage at all. As long as it is composed of consenting legal adults, I don't care.

Oh my god, this is hilarious xD. Purely political 

So basically this means absolutely nothing. On one hand I think it's great that he is leaving it up to the states to decide, less power for the fed, and all that, but on the other, why is this an issue in the first place? This is one of the few things that I'd say go ahead and bypass the states and legalize it on the federal level. 

Careful, dude. You'll kill everyone's bravery boner. He's already paid a huge price for taking such a principled stand... by using it to raise $1 million.

Remember when Rand Paul was flayed alive by the media saying he thought the Civil Rights Act went too far by preventing private business owners from discriminating on the basis of race, despite the fact that he generally supports civil rights for blacks? It's funny that the same media doesn't seem to be as interested in investigating how Obama can think gays should have the right to get married while also firmly supporting the states' right to deny them that right. This from a guy who doesn't believe that a state can have the exact same immigration laws as the federal government.

Update: dent made.

Once upon a time, certain "races" weren't allowed to get married, inter-racial marriages weren't even allowed, and THAT was between a man and a woman.

Plus, you are looking at it as if Gays and Lesbians are going to be taking something away from straight couples, this is completely the wrong way to look at it, the straight couples loose NOTHING. Zilch. Zero. Nudda. Nothing.
Gays and Lesbians do however gain allot, most importantly to show off their love and affection for each other which is what the basis of marriage is to begin with.

But Gays and Lesbians aren't taking away anything, by allowing same sex couples to get married it's not stopping straight couples from getting married is it?

As an outsider, if you think Obama is a "smart" president, then you really are in a dire situation.
Politician's make excellent actors afterall and vice versa, they lie, change their views for money and votes all the time.

The only decent candidate that I have seen thus far is Ron Paul... And if you guys don't wanna' elect him I would love for him to come to my country and become Prime Minister, Ron Paul is intelligent, doesn't change his views for the sake of money or votes and has sound military, monetary and social ideas/policies. - Most of all he wants to restore your freedoms and enforce the constition and stop your government baby-sitting the people and your business's, what's not to vote for?

Sadly, you just answered your own question.

Well, gay marriage, or gays in general, brought to that level has never been anything been about politics regardless if you support or do not support them :D

Funnily enough supportiveness towarsd gay marriage is barely worth an effort if your goal is to get votes of said gays, it's more aimed at those who infected by "tolerant" ideology. Cheap move.

Most politicians will change their stance on gay marriage if this works out and Obama gains that extra 10% of votes from one statement. You watch.

Either way, I hope more politicians will start to support gay marriage. It really is one of the most significant rights issues of our time.

Although the obvious solution to me is for the government not to recognise marriage at all, and only recognise civil unions. All partners can have a civil union recognised by the government. Marriage itself will then only be recognised by the churches, not the goevrnment. The decision on who they will allow to get married will then be at the discretion of the church itself.

I imagine most gays who will be voting for him after this would have voted for him anyway, so it will be hard to tell. But yeah, I think you're right. Right now opinion polls show something like 50% in favor of gay marriage and 48% against, but obviously the strong antis outnumber the strong pros right now. Once that changes, you'll see politicians (minus the few true believer Santorum types) falling all over themselves to say how many gay parents their children's friends have and how they were for it all along. Profiles in courage, all of them.