Obama and gay marriage

Lots of talk in the last few days about Obama, his administration, and their opinion on gay marriage. I want to come at this from a slightly different direction.

Let’s assume that Obama really is pro-gay marriage, but is pretending he’s not for political reasons. I think most people believe this to be the case. Let’s further assume something more controversial: that Obama failing to take a stand on this issue makes it easier for him to pursue some pro-gay measures slightly more under the radar (the repeal of DADT, refusing to defend DOMA, etc.). I realize that people might not believe this to be true, but I’m curious about the hypothetical. My question is: would that be a worthwhile trade?

The whole ‘evolving’ viewpoint of Obama is, of course, annoying. And since this is an issue that I care rather deeply about, it’s certainly frustrating. But I am also strongly of the opinion that people are overly obsessed with this sort of thing. The bully pulpit is severely overrated. And frankly, there are plenty of studies from recent years that in the incredibly polarized party structure we’ve got right now the president taking a stand on an issue actually drives away the potentially persuadable on the other side. It raises the profile of the matter and turns it into a singular national question.

Now, I’m no fan of federalism (and I may write up something longer about gay marriage and federalism soon), but given the state of affairs, the realm in which gay marriage fights will take place over the next few years will be the states. So I can see the potential argument here: by avoiding the question, Obama isn’t really doing any harm to the struggle for gay marriage, and might make it slightly easier to accomplish the things that can be done at the national level.

I’m not saying I agree with this, but I do think it makes a modest amount of sense. But I haven’t really seen people discussing it this way. Everyone seems to agree that Obama is selling out the gay community and the only question is whether the external benefits he gets are worth it.  Is the argument made here totally implausible?

Update: I see that Scott Lemieux says something pretty similar to this.  As per usual, I agree with him.