Obama: ‘I didn’t lie about same-sex marriage to get elected’
By Josh Haggis
Barack Obama has insisted reports that he lied about his viewpoint on same-sex marriage are false.
Former strategist David Axelrod makes the claims in his new book Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, saying that Obama was always in support of same-sex marriage, despite claiming to only support Civil Unions during his 2008 Presidential election campaign. Find out more here.
In a new interview with Buzzfeed News, the President has refuted the claims and revealed the driving force behind his change of mind on the topic.
“I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there,” he said.
He went onto explain that “the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine” eventually made his change his mind about gay marriage.
Meanwhile, the US government has announced it is to appoint an LGBT Rights Envoy – find out more here.
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