Jacob Sullum on Obama's Changing Attitude Toward Gay Marriage

After President Barack Obama finally gave his explicit support to gay marriage in May, The New York Times claimed it was the culmination of "a wrenching personal transformation on the issue." If so, writes Senior Editor Jacob Sullum, Obama changed back into the person he was in 1996, when he was a political novice running for the Illinois Senate. "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages," he told a gay newspaper back then, "and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."