Why Obama Must Come Out of the Closet on Marriage Equality

We all got a laugh when Van Jones, asked if President Obama would lose some support in the black community if he came out for marriage equality, quipped that the president wouldn’t lose such support even if he “came out as gay” himself.

“I don’t understand this strategy,” Jones said. “It’s not a hard-core issue for many African-Americans.”

Jones not only got it right in alluding to the fact that there’s really not one constituency among Obama supporters in the Democratic base, or among independents, that would vote against the president on this one issue; he was also right to conjure up the closet.