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'Same-sex couples should be able to get married': Obama changes his mind on gay unions

PUBLISHED: 14:02 EST, 9 May 2012 | UPDATED: 14:37 EST, 9 May 2012

President Barack Obama voiced support for gay marriage in an interview with ABC News today, the third time he has changed his stance on the issue in his political career.

Obama's announcement is a political calculation for his reelection campaign, an attempt to draw a sharp line between himself and Mitt Romney, who opposes gay marriage. The president appears to be banking on the issue, which is heavily supported by younger Americans, to mobilize the youth vote, which has become disaffected during his term in office.

Obama had long been suspected of holding this view, but was thought to be afraid to make it public because of the political backlash.

The revelation comes the day after voters in the key battleground state of North Carolina approved a strict new ban on same-sex marriage. The measure, which prohibits any civil or domestic benefits for gay couples, passed by a landslide with 61 percent of the vote.

Change of heart: President Barack Obama said he once thought civil unions were sufficient rights for gay couples, but he no longer believes that

Robin Roberts

Barack Obama

Historic: President Barack Obama is the first sitting US President to publicly support gay marriage. President George W Bush opposed it and President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage act into law

'At a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,' the president said.

Obama claims the change is a personal one only, and that he he still believes the issue of gay marriage should be left up to the states.

Currently, six states allow gay coupled to wed and 30 states have constitutional amendments explicitly banning it.

Obama said his daughters and their friends were a major reason he changed his mind about gay marriage.

'You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we're talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently,' he said.

'It doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.'

Obama had been under intense pressure to clarify his view toward gay marriage after Vice President Joe Biden publicly supported it on Sunday.

Pressure: The White House sought out Robin Roberts and ABC News for the interview after the president came under intense pressure to clarify his position on the issue

The White House sought out the interview with Robins Roberts, the 'Good Morning America' host, to explain himself. Parts of the interview will air Wednesday night on 'World News Tonight' and also Thursday morning on 'Good Morning America.'

Roberts, herself, has never married.

Biden's remarks on Sunday set the stage for Obama's announcement.

'I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual – men and women marrying – are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that,' Biden said on Meet the Press.

The president signaled that he was open to changing his opinion on gay marriage in 2010 when he said his feelings on the issues were 'evolving.'

'I struggle with this,' he famously said.

Since 2004, Obama has opposed gay marriage, saying his beliefs were based on his Christian faith.

As a presidential candidate he supported civil unions.

However, this isn't the first time Obama has changed in mind on the issue.

In 1996, as an Illinois State Senate candidate, he told a gay newspaper in Chicago that he was in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage and 'would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.'

The political implications of his position change are unclear.

Recent polls show 50 percent of Americans support gay marriage, but also reveal that the 45 percent who oppose it have strong convictions.

This could explain plain why North Carolina's Amendment 1, which changes the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage and partnership benefits to gay couples, won by such a wide margin among voters.

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Talk to Al Jazeera - Talk to Al Jazeera - Yusuf Raza Gilani

The prime minister of Pakistan discusses contempt charges, relations with the US and the country's powerful military.

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Texas INMATE gets 40 per cent of votes against Obama in West Virginia primary

Prisoner Keith Judd got 40% of vote in West Virginia to Obama's 60%
Inmate 11593-051 got on ballot by paying $ 2,500 fee and filing forms
Attracting 15% of vote normally qualifies candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention

By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 00:57 EST, 9 May 2012 | UPDATED: 08:31 EST, 9 May 2012

Just how unpopular is President Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in a Texas prison received four out of 10 votes in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary.

Inmate Keith Judd, 53, is serving 17 years for extortion at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution. He was sentenced in 1999 for making threats against the University of New Mexico and is due to be released on June 24 next year.

With 93 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60 per cent of the vote to Judd's 40 per cent.

Popular prisoner: Inmate Keith Judd (pictured left) who is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas, received around 40% of votes in West Virginia's primary, coming a close second to President Obama

For some West Virginia Democrats, simply running against Obama is enough to get Judd - or Inmate Number 11593-051 - votes.

'I voted against Obama,' said Ronnie Brown, a 43-year-old electrician from Cross Lanes who called himself a conservative Democrat.

'I don't like him. He didn't carry the state before and I'm not going to let him carry it again.'

When asked which presidential candidate he voted for, Brown said: 'That guy out of Texas.'

Judd was able to get on the state ballot by paying a $ 2,500 fee and filing a form known as a notarized certification of announcement, said Jake Glance, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office.

According to the Charleston Gazette , Judd circulated his political standpoints to local media. These include opposing national health care reform on the grounds that it violates the 10th Amendment.

He also cites the U.S. Constitution, saying that incarcerated felons should not be disqualified from voting.

Judd is housed at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Texarkana, a low-security facility for male prisoners. It is located in northeast Texas near the Arkansas border, 175 miles east of Dallas.

Attracting at least 15 per cent of the vote would normally qualify a candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Jaded: Some voters said they were happy to vote for anyone besides Obama - including a federal inmate

But state Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarbro said no one has filed to be a delegate for Judd.

The state party also believes that Judd has failed to file paperwork required of presidential candidates, but officials continued to research the matter, Mr Scarbro said. There may also be issues because the man is an inmate in federal prison.

Voters in other conservative states showed their displeasure with Obama in Democratic primaries last March.

In Oklahoma, anti-abortion protestor Randall Terry got 18 per cent of the primary vote. A lawyer from Tennessee, John Wolfe, pulled nearly 18,000 votes in the Louisiana primary.

Winning: Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won West Virginia's GOP primary Tuesday with more than 69 per cent of the vote

In Alabama, 18 per cent of Democratic voters chose 'uncommitted' in the primary rather than vote for Obama.

Obama's energy policies and the Environmental Protection Agency's handling of mining-related permits have incurred the wrath of West Virginia's coal industry.

With the state the nation's second-biggest producer of this fossil fuel, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Senator Joe Manchin - both Democrats have championed the industry - have declined to say whether they will support Obama in November.

Hillary Rodham Clinton beat Obama in the state's 2008 primary, and he lost the state to Republican John McCain in the general election.

The latest state-by-state Gallup poll, released in January, found Obama with a 32.7 per cent approval rating in West Virginia.

The president had a lower approval rating only in Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

'Keith Judd's performance is embarrassing for Obama and our great state,' outgoing West Virginia GOP Chairman Mike Stuart said.

Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won West Virginia's GOP primary on Tuesday with more than 69 per cent of the vote, with 93 per cent of precincts reporting. Rick Santorum followed with 12 per cent, while Ron Paul had 11 per cent.

Mr Brown, the Cross Lanes electrician, went to the polls on Tuesday with his 22-year-old daughter, Emily. She planned to vote for Judd too until she found out where Judd has been living.

'I'm not voting for somebody who's in prison,' she said.

However she was certain about one thing: 'I just want to vote against Barack Obama.'

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Just The Mic - IF IT AINT BROKE... BREAK IT!

EPISODE 29 (VIDEOGAME VLOG) TODAY ON JUST THE MIC TALK ABOUT THE COMMON FORMULA RUNNING RAMPID IN VIDEOGAME DEVELOPMENT. *****WARNING***** If you are a fanboy that doesn't respect opinion just turn away now. This channel isn't to please anyone.

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Sex Scandal And a Failure Of Politics - pilot.com

Raleigh

As long as there is politics and sex, there will be political scandals. In the state capital, and surely in Washington, far more of these smoldering scandals take place than are ever publicly reported.

The whispers start. A spouse finds out and delivers an ultimatum. A politician announces that there will be no re-election bid, that he or she is coming home.

The trysts usually become public only when someone runs to the press with an admission or proof.

Who can forget the comments of congressional aide Elizabeth Ray, mistress to Ohio Congressman Wayne Hays? "I can't type. I can't file. I can't even answer the phone," Ray told The Washington Post. Or how about the photos of presidential hopeful Gary Hart, on board a boat called "Monkey Business," with paramour Donna Rice?

Former state House Speaker Jim Black denied being romantically involved with one of his former aides, but when both he and she became part of an influence-peddling scandal, he faced uncomfortable public questioning about the relationship.

More typically, the evidence doesn't exist and the public questioning never occurs.

It did in the case of Charles Thomas, chief of staff to current state House Speaker Thom Tillis. A private detective came to The News & Observer of Raleigh with photos and videos of Thomas, who is married, holding hands and kissing a female lobbyist, also married.

Thomas resigned hours before the story was published. Tillis apparently responded by inquiring about who else on his staff might be having an improper relationship with a lobbyist, and another resignation quickly followed.

Perhaps this episode of the Jones Street affair ought to be dismissed as an occasional but inevitable result when you throw together that heady concoction of power, tension and adulation.

It's more.

It's a failure of leadership by Tillis. That failure can be found in the hiring of Thomas, someone who neither understood nor respected the North Carolina General Assembly as an institution.

Thomas came to the position after spending a single term in the House, as a seatmate of Tillis while the two were freshman lawmakers and in the political minority. Thomas had no experience exercising legislative power.

And Tillis had a Republican bench from which to draw - smart, experienced people who learned the ropes of exercising political power under former Republican House Speaker Harold Brubaker or today fill key roles within state elected offices held by Republicans.

As a relatively inexperienced legislator himself, Tillis needed - and still needs - a top aide who understands that so much about being an effective legislative leader involves process, not partisanship.

At times, that process has to be about calming partisan passions, not inflaming them.

That doesn't mean that he has to embrace the policies of his Democratic predecessors. He wasn't elected to do that, and he shouldn't.

He should, though, recognize that his predecessors - Democratic and Republican - weren't dumb. If there were a better way to run the railroad, they would have figured it out.

Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association in Raleigh. Contact him at smooneyh@ncinsider.com.

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A case for the special branch? Boy racer's car put on top of tree by neighbours, fed up with his bad driving

By Richard Hartley-parkinson

PUBLISHED: 06:57 EST, 9 May 2012 | UPDATED: 08:15 EST, 9 May 2012

Fed up with their neighbour's antics, people who have been driven round the bend by a boy racer's inconsiderate driving have taken matters into their own hands.

They hoisted 24-year-old Zbigniew Filo's car into a willow tree in Lubczyna, Poland, shaming into promising to change the way he drives.

Locals are keeping tight-lipped over who put the Ford Escort into the tree, but have admitted that one of the villager's mobile cranes was borrowed to carry out the mission under the cover of darkness.

I don't remember parking it there! Zbigniew Filo awoke to find his car had been put in a tree by angry neighbours

Police spokesman Marta Pierko said: 'We received a call from a man saying his car was stuck in a tree, and that his neighbours had put it there.

'After inspecting the site we instructed him to remove it from the tree,' she added.

One local added: 'Whoever, or whatever it was, it's probably a good thing as he was a dangerous driver and could have killed someone.

'Perhaps he'll think twice about his hair-raising driving and about getting a licence or who knows where his next car might end up?'

Now shamefaced Filo has promised to change his driving style.

'I get the message, but I think it was a bit harsh,' he said.

The 24-year-old has promised to change his driving ways but still feels his neighbours went too far

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Carryy On Shekhar - Shekhar Suman light hearted take on Political Parties - Episode 77

Shekhar Suman tickles his audience's funny bone with his riotous remarks on political parties and celebrities alike. The guest for the evening on Carryy on Shekhar is the essentially parallel cinema actor Mukesh Tiwari. Mukesh recounts accidents he met with during his career, his upcoming movies and people he believes are behind his success. Watch the talented actor open up about his life and opinions on various subjects. Watch this episode to know more about Mukesh Tiwari! Carryy on Shekhar is a show where Shekhar Suman presents a stand up comedy act followed by an interview of the eminent guest of the evening. Shekhar Suman takes on the current events of Bollywood, cricket and politics in his hysterical comedy act. With the likes of Malaika Arora Khan, Kailash Kher, Sudesh Bhosle, Sudhir Mishra, Sadhna Sargam and many more eminent personalities from all facets of entertainment and politics marking their presence on Carryy on Shekhar, this show is a definite watch for all those who want to enjoy humor peppered with a candid conversation.

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