Obama's evolution

Though roundly ridiculed by opponents, Obama's delay in coming to a firm decision on the subject of marriage equality speaks far more of general confusion than of that flaunted symbol of America's political furniture: the flip-flop. Around halfway through the clip embedded above, Obama is asked for his views on the long-running and apparently enduring debate over whether homosexuality — and surely, then, heterosexuality — is a choice. At first he gives what I would regard as the correct answer. But the interviewer then moves immediately to the obvious next question. Though he certainly attempted to, the future-president couldn't produce a rational answer. His thought progression demonstrated every sign of someone who in an intellectual sense recognizes the need for equality under the law, but cannot, for whatever reason, bring themselves to 'feel' in the same way.

And, like most of these evolutions (if you don't mind me using the term), the delay is caused not by an inability to rationalize or justify but instead by the inability to align one's thoughts and one's feelings so that they correspond properly. Obama thought like a liberal, but his feelings were decidedly — dare I stoop to such meaningless distinctions — conservative. Obama's evolution was not one of thought, but of feeling. Unfortunately, though, it's a change so deplorably few have yet experienced.