Obama openly supports gay marriage!!!!

News broke yesterday that Obama has announced that he officially supports gay marriage. Some people are calling this political suicide, as Obama has probably alienated most voters in red states. That being said, his announcement is a huge step in the right direction towards equality for all couples around the world. The United States is still one of the major superpowers, and they know it. So if this announcement was breaking news in Canada, imagine the reach that this message of acceptance will have worldwide. Half way around the world, I'm sure some people are talking about how the President of The United States of America is cool with gay marriage. If you compare global politics to a high school, then Obama is pretty much the popular jock who just stood up for the kid getting bullied. Once someone that people think is "cool" stands up for something unpopular, chances are others are going to start looking at their own homophobic beliefs and questioning them. If this works in a schoolyard setting, why can't it work on an international scale?

What I found to be the best part of this announcement (click here to watch it), is that Obama explains the process of how he came to the realization that banning gay/lesbian marriage is discrimination. He explains that although he believes everyone should be equal, like many moderates he didn't understand why civil unions were not satisfactory for gay and lesbian couples. Then, he says something that really sums up the entire reasoning for the whole gay marriage debate in a way that even the most ignorant people will understand. I'm paraphrasing, but basically Obama says this: I understand that the word "marriage" is really important to lots of people because of many reasons. That's why some people are threatened, because they don't want the tradition of marriage to be changed. But those are the EXACT same reasons that gays and lesbians are fighting for the right to marriage equality. They are teachers, firemen, soldiers, blue collar, white collar, everyday Americans too. Gays and lesbians don't grow up in some weirdo cult or on a deserted island. They grow up in the same society as everyone else, where girls and boys are taught that when you grow up, you are supposed to fall in love and get married and have babies and live happily ever after.  The word "marriage" and everything that comes with it (religious beliefs, tradition, commitment etc) means just as much to LGBT couples as it does to straight couples. If anything, LGBT couples probably take marriage a lot more seriously than many straight couples, because they fight so hard for the same rights and understand exactly why its important to their community.

Five years ago, if someone told me that the President of the United States was going to publicly announce support for gay marriage, I would have laughed in their face. I guess there might actually be some hope that the world is becoming a slightly happier, safer place for all people regardless of sexual orientation.