After Vice President Joe Biden voiced his support of same-sex marriage over the weekend, CNN jumped all over the news on Monday and expectantly wondered if President Obama would follow suit. In fact, prime-time host Piers Morgan went so far as to admire the "brave Catholic" Biden for dissenting from Church teaching on the issue.
During every hour save one from 5 a.m. all the way through 10 p.m. on Monday, CNN hyped that Obama administration officials had come out in support of same-sex marriage. They hosted the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for a soft interview and aired quotes from the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign and a parent with a lesbian daughter.
Piers Morgan hit the "inconsistency" of Obama's position and emphasized that gay marriage is becoming a winning issue "where the tide is now with, increasingly, people who support it." He asked Romney advisor Ed Gillespie "Do you not feel that you may be on the wrong end of where this all ends up? Is it not better to be a bit more progressive, especially now your man has won the nomination, or effectively won it?"
Anchor Suzanne Malveaux asked if Romney would "give up the issue completely" citing a poll showing 53 percent of Americans favored same-sex marriage.
And anchor Carol Costello went easier on President Obama for his indecisiveness on gay marriage than CNN's Kyra Phillips did with GOP Congressman Allen West, who didn't want to go "down the rabbit hole" to discuss issues that "aren't that important." Phillips, aghast, challenged him on the importance of the issue.
Costello, meanwhile, was content to let Obama skirt around the topic. "[T]his election has to be about the economy because that's what's going to get the President re-elected if he can convince voters that he has a plan for his second term," she insisted, adding that "these social issues – they'll just fall by the wayside."
"I guess, does he really need to do this, to energize the base? I mean, is that an important part of his re-election campaign? Or does he not need to do that so that he won't upset those other Americans who aren't ready to fully embrace gay marriage? I mean, why take the chance?" Costello asked.
Costello did show some love for Biden, who had referenced the sitcom Will and Grace for doing more to educate the public on gay marriage than other causes. She played a clip from the dhow and cooed that "Apparently he [Biden] got his degree in tolerance from the college of Will and Grace."
CNN made sure to report that along with Biden, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan also supported same-sex marriage,. "So does all of this put – put Mr. Obama in a tough spot?" asked Costello. CNN wondered over and over if Obama was now moving towards supporting gay marriage.
"Why do you think the President hasn't fully embraced the idea of gay marriage?" Costello posed to Darlene Nipper of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
