FRONTLINE/PBS

Clarence Aaron has been in prison since the early nineties, serving a sentence to three consecutive life terms without parole. With that kind of sentence, it is a sad truth that men like Aaron are tossed into the trash heap of society. That heap is not simply the prison itself, but a stigma created by the prison, and the incredibly harsh sentence, given the crime of which Aaron was accused and convicted.

Guys like Aaron are usually written off forever as a lost cause. So why are we still talking about him?

A lot of it has to do with the crime itself, and a twisted variation of the chicken-and-egg theory: which came first, the crime, or the criminal? While not wholly clean, this case seems to deem Aaron liable for others' actions, and even more so than them. In her detailed investigative reporting for ProPublica, Dafna Linzer sums up Aaron's crime:

Aaron stumbled into the "war on drugs" near its peak, in 1992. Then a linebacker at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he introduced a classmate whose brother was a drug supplier to a cocaine dealer he knew from high school in Mobile, Ala.

Aaron was present for the sale of nine kilograms of cocaine and the conversion of one kilogram to crack, according to court records. He was paid $1,500 by the dealer.

Not good, but it was shocking to many when Aaron received the harshest sentence of the three men -- so it's not surprise that just before George W. Bush was inaugurated as President in 2001, Aaron's attorneys filed for his sentence to be commuted, to no avail. (See ProPublica's timeline for the Aaron case here.) Now, the odds to receive a presidential commutation are incredibly low; as Linzer notes, President Obama has rejected nearly 3,800 commutation requests from prisoners, and has approved one; President George W. Bush commuted 11 sentences out of nearly 7,500 contenders.

That said, Aaron's case sounds like a perfect recipe for commutation to many -- including the U.S. District Judge who administered that sentence, and almost four years ago, advocated for Aaron's release:

"Looking through the prism of hindsight, and considering the many factors argued by the defendant that were not present at the time of his initial sentencing, one can argue that a less harsh sentence might have been more equitable..."

There may be many reasons why Aaron hasn't been pardoned. We now know one, thanks to Linzer's reporting: the U.S. Pardon Attorney's office, a part of the Justice Department, submitted an incomplete report during the waning days of the Bush 43 administration to the White House:

Records show that Ronald Rodgers, the current pardon attorney, left out critical information in recommending that the White House deny Aaron's application. In a confidential note to a White House lawyer, Rodgers failed to accurately convey the views of the prosecutor and judge and did not disclose that they had advocated for Aaron's immediate commutation.

Kenneth Lee, the lawyer who shepherded Aaron's case on behalf of the White House, was aghast when ProPublica provided him with original statements from the judge and prosecutor to compare with Rodgers's summary. Had he read the statements at the time, Lee said, he would have urged Bush to commute Aaron's sentence.

"This case was such a close call," Lee said. "We had been asking the pardons office to reconsider it all year. We made clear we were interested in this case."

It seems to me that Aaron, having already served about 20 years, has overpaid whatever debt he owed to society -- but whether he should be a free man is, I'll allow, up for debate. Even if you judge that he should, as ProPublica also reported in December, white prisoners are just about four times as likely to be pardoned as black prisoners. All that said, though the odds be stacked against him, these new revelations only underscore that there's no reason why Aaron shouldn't get a fair shot at saving his own life.

I'd recommend reading the entire Linzer story either in ProPublica or the Washington Post, and watching the 1999 FRONTLINE report (above) about Aaron. Click below the jump for our daily reads.

Melissa took some time at the end of today's show to honor mothers of every ilk (including the mothers of us, the #nerdland staff) in a moving "Footnote" essay. Some were mothers who are serving abroad in our armed forces; some waiting for children in those armed forces to come home. Some mothers are undocumented; some sacrificing to their last; some, like Marissa Alexander, are incarcerated and perhaps even giving birth behind bars. Melissa gave respect to those white mothers, like her own, who are raising conscious, self-loving children of color, to mothers who are gruff and/or kind, and mothers who either grieve today, or whose loss is grieved.

In that particular respect, I wanted to share another phenomenal essay, written in Ebony by New York-based writer and poet Saeed Jones about facing his first Mother's Day without his mom, who passed away last year on May 12:

But here is the peace: grief is vast. I thought it would be like a river, powerful but with a clear direction. Instead, though, I’ve found that grief is an ocean. There is hell in grief, to be sure, but there is joy too. Now, though I sometimes cry, I more often feel a sense of awe at the depth of my connection to my mother. Perhaps this wonder is how I know that ten months and more have passed and that my mother, in some form, is back in the world. Awe at the undeniable fact that I will forever be the son of a fiercely beautiful woman. Awe at knowing just how exquisitely she prepared me to live and write my way into this world. And yes, her absence hurts, but her presence – and I feel it more and more each day – her presence moves me forward. Perhaps awe is the best word to describe this aspect of grief given its relation to the word awful.

Queen Elizabeth II has been quoted as saying “Grief is the price we pay for love.” Love, mother love in particular, is not free. In the fifth grade while on a camping trip, I got a letter from my mother that ended by saying “I love you more than the air I breathe. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.” A love like that is worth an infinite ache.

To all the mothers out there, have a wonderful rest of your Mother's Day. To all those like Saeed facing today without your mothers, I hope you find strength and serenity. Melissa's "Footnote" is below.

First things first: Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there. I think I can speak for all of us here in #nerdland when I say that we send our very best to you. Especially to you, Sybrina Fulton.

This year, I have to think it's just about impossible for anyone to consider the meaning of Mother's Day without thinking of Fulton, the mother of the late Trayvon Martin. She has endured a special hell this year, one shared surely by too many other mothers whose names we don't know. (Fulton's Mother's Day PSA for the Second Chance program, released earlier this week, is incredibly moving. Keep a tissue nearby.)

For too many mothers today, for so many reasons, Mother's Day is a melancholy occasion. Listening to Tupac Shakur's mother (who also surely grieves today) speak at the beginning of the song above about how glad she was she didn't give birth in prison, I can't also help but think of Marissa Alexander, the Jacksonville mother of three who in 2010 -- less than two weeks after giving birth -- sought to stop yet another attack by her abusive husband by firing a warning shot into her kitchen wall. Earlier this week, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Continuing on a theme from last week, Melissa will take a look at the Alexander case, and the tens of thousands of other incarcerated mothers in our prison system. Our special guest will be Tina Reynolds, co-founder and co-chair at WORTH, as well as an adjunct professor at York College. She gave birth to a child while incarcerated, and he was nine months old when she was released.

We'll also take a look at the extraordinary mothers of the two men who, it seems, will face off for the presidency this year. The stories of Lenore Romney and Stanley Ann Dunham are incredible, indeed, and not in the literal sense of that word. Melissa will take a look at these women's lives with the help of two biographers: Dunham biographer Janny Scott, and Mitt Romney biographer Ronald Scott, who is also related to the former Massachusetts governor.

Speaking of Romney, Melissa will also examine the revelations from this week's controversial Washington Post article about his prep-school life, which included some rather cruel pranks, bullying, and an assault on a gay classmate. Melissa will also offer a "reality check" about the famously fertile, pay tribute to our moms (yes, those of us on the staff here in #nerdland), and will continue her conversation about the President's new marriage-equality stance with a new roster of guests, including:

• Chloe Angyal, an editor at Feministing, and freelance writer for such publications as Jezebel and The Atlantic.
• Anthea Butler, professor of Religious Studies and Graduate Chair of Religion at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Michael Tomasky, Special Correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
• Robin Levi, attorney and co-editor of "Inside This Place, Not of It."
• Rev. Vivian Nixon, executive director at the College and Community Fellowship and co-founder of the Education Inside Out Coalition.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET!

"We gather here to celebrate" are words I'm not sure you hear anywhere outside of a wedding. And perhaps outside of my late-eighties grade-school socials and your local easy-listening-and-R&B station, you don't hear Luther Vandross' classic "Here and Now" more often than you do when a married couple has their first dance at their wedding.

Matrimony, holy or otherwise, was this week's biggest news. President Obama took a historic new stance on marriage equality, becoming the first American President to state that he doesn't believe that marriage is just between a man and a woman. Whether you judge the decision as courageous, cynical, or catastrophic -- or don't care at all -- the President's now-completed "evolution" on the topic is incredibly newsworthy. As such, Melissa will lead an extensive conversation about it.

And yes, we'll cover the rather apocalyptic reaction to it by some folks on the Right (like Franklin Graham) -- pivoting to a conversation about how the continued religiosity and hard-Right stances that conservatives refuse to budge from are signaling, perhaps at just a deafening volume now, the end of moderation in politics. (For another signifier of that this week, we saw the career of Senator Richard Luger, considered a Republican moderate by some, end at the hands of a Tea Party challenger.) For that conversation, Melissa will talk to a man who has seen both sides of the aisle, and had Republican extremism cost him his seat -- former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.

We'll also have updates on this week's breakthrough in HIV drug research, the resurgence of the Occupy movement, and Melissa's tribute to an "author of splendid nightmares" who we lost this week. Our guests will include:

• Lizz Winstead, political satirist, co-creator of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," and author of the newly-released "Lizz Free or Die."
• Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for the Washington Post, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of theGrio.com, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry and author of "Why Marriage Matters."
• Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of Infectious Diseases at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Joe Watkins, former aide to President George H.W. Bush.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET!

Good Saturday morning, #nerdland! Get warmed up for today's show with one of our favorite discussions last week, Melissa's conversation with ballerina Misty Copeland and violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins about African-Americans in the arts, the importance of government funding, and youth following in their footsteps.

We led off with a solo conversation with Copeland, the first African-American soloist with the American Ballet Theatre in decades. Hall-Tompkins, a member of the Ritz Chamber Players, joined the conversation in the second half, which you can find after the jump. Read more about both women in last week's preview.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker's next cover.

This was a historic week in the battle for marriage equality in this country. The struggle is not over, but it has a powerful new ally. It got me to thinking about how many times I have written in defense of marriage equality and how many battles we have lost; like the Amendment 1 vote in North Carolina this week.

On our show, we often enjoy going back "into the vault" to find historic moments that speak to our current news cycle. In that spirit, I went into my personal vault and found this piece I wrote for The Nation in October of 2009 in which I detailed the reasons I support marriage equality. In doing so, I was also struck by my reflection on pain of my own first marriage:

I know from personal experience that a bad marriage is enough to rid you of the fear of death. But this experience allows me suspect that a good marriage must be among the most powerful, life-affirming, emotionally fulfilling experiences available to human beings. I support marriage equality not only because it is unfair, in a legal sense, to deny people the privileges of marriage based on their identity; but also because it also seems immoral to forbid some human beings from opting into this emotional experience.

We must do more than simply integrate new groups into an old system. Let's use this moment to re-imagine marriage and marriage-free options for building families, rearing children, crafting communities, and distributing public goods.

Since I first wrote this piece, I married my soul mate, moved to a new city, started a new academic job, and begun hosting this show. Huge changes! Yet, so much of what I wrote in that column about the inequality facing loving LGBT couples hasn't changed at all. I hope to look back someday very soon, and remember this week as the beginning of the end of second-class citizenship for so many of the people I love.

Rolling Stone/Cass Bird

Tom Gabel, lead singer of the punk band Against Me!, has publicly announced plans to live as a woman and to take on the name Laura Jane Grace.

Gabel's cbig news hit newsstands today in Rolling Stone magazine, where she publicly shares her very private battle with gender dysphoria, an issue that she says she has dealt with for years. In opening up, Gabel says she will soon be transitioning into becoming a woman by taking hormones and by undergoing electrolysis treatments.

Public allusions to Gabel's battles with gender identity emerged in Against Me!'s song The Ocean, released in 2007, where Gabel gives hint to the source of her name change. 

"And if I could have chosen,/ I would have been born a woman,/ My mother once told me she would have named me Laura,/ I'd grow up to be strong and beautiful like her."

LGBT groups, Twitter fans, and even fellow musicians praised Gabel with an onslaught of support for her courage to step forward. Though Gabel said very few people knew of her decision prior to the article's publication, Rolling Stone contributing editor Josh Eells speculated on what prompted the very public coming out.

I'm not sure why she wanted to do it in exactly this way, but I think she wanted to not have a thousand conversations with people. This was a way to push herself a little. She said that so many times she'd make a goal to tell her wife Heather or the band, and she'd make excuses and put it off. This was setting up a deadline for herself. 

Gabel, 31, told Rolling Stone that she plans to remain with her wife Heather as they continue to raise their 2-year-old daughter. "For me, the most terrifying thing about this was how she would accept the news," Gabel says of her wife. "But she's been super-amazing and understanding."

As Florida residents, Gabel and her wife life in a state where voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of defining marriage as being between a man an a woman back in 2008. But according to MTV, the couple's marriage rights are not on the line:

Though Florida is not one of the six states in the nation that recognize marriages between same-sex partners, Gabel's declaration won't change her marital status either way, according to Lisa Mottet, Director of the Transgender Civil Rights Project at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

"Under established law, marriages are evaluated for their validity at the time of marriage, i.e., the date of the wedding/when the marriage license was signed," she said. "Only divorces, death, and annulments end marriages — gender transition does not end a marriage, nor convert it to a same-sex marriage. If two people were considered different sex at the time of their wedding, they will continue to be considered married until death, divorce, or annulment."

Postscript: Melissa explored transgender rights and issues on our April 15 show when author Kate Bornstein, Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Mel Wymore, a Democratic candidate for New York City Council to discuss discrimination against the LGBT community. 

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Mesa Prep second baseman Paige Sultzbach.

Survey time, #nerdland: your high school sports team is just one game away from a state championship. As you prepare for the big game, you find out your opponent's team has one member of the opposite gender. What do you do?

If you said, "forfeit the game, and a chance at the championship title," then you are on the same page as Our Lady of Sorrows, an Arizona fundamentalist Catholic high school. On Thursday, the Our Lady of Sorrows baseball squad forfeited the Arizona Charter Athletic Association state championship game against Mesa Preparatory Academy, a team with one girl on it.

Paige Sultzbach is a freshman at Mesa Prep and, according to the Arizona Republic, she joined the boys baseball team with encouragement from the coach because the school does not have a girls softball team. Sultzbach sat out two games during the regular season against Our Lady of Sorrows (which has a school policy prohibiting co-ed sports)out of respect for the school's beliefs.

Sitting out the championship game was not an option.

Our Lady of Sorrows is not part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, and is run by the U.S. branch of the conservative Society of Saint Pius X, which broke with the Catholic Church in the 1980s. (There are over two dozen schools in the U.S. run by the Society.)

Our Lady of Sorrows released a statement to FoxNews.com, saying that they had "no choice" because of their belief in "forming and educating boys and girls separately":

“Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty,” the statement read. "Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls."

Paige's mother, Pamela Sultzbach, offered her translation not just of the remarks, but Our Lady of Sorrows' actions (which spoke volumes all their own):

"This is not a contact sport, it shouldn't be an issue...It wasn't that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it's that (they believe) a girl's place is not on a field."

While the Mesa Prep baseball team ended their season undefeated, I do think it's disappointing that they couldn't finish their run and deliver a championship to their school fair and square. What kind of a win is the one that's given to you because the other team won't play against a girl? In the real world, you can't just sit out of every competition that will involve someone of the opposite gender. Perhaps someone should have offered to administer "cootie shots" before the game.

Postscript: On our April 21 show, Melissa discussed the role of women in sports and the importance of Title IX regulations to end discrimination in sports last month. See the discussion below with pioneering marathoner Kathrine Switzer, ESPN.com columnist Jemele Hill, Salon columnist Rebecca Traister, and Black Girls Run! co-founder Ashley Hicks.

Last weekend, Melissa examined the case against Marissa Alexander, the Jacksonville mother of three who fired a single bullet into her kitchen ceiling two years ago to warn her husband, Rico Gray, against continuing his physical attack on her. Gray, who reacted in violent anger after discovering that Alexander texted pictures of their newborn child to her ex-husband, spoke out earlier this week in an interview with TheLoop21:

“Personally, I wish she would have taken the three years,” Gray said. “I don’t wish 20 years on no one.”

He's referring to the plea deal that Alexander reportedly turned down, a deal that took into account Gray's history of violence. Alexander presumably cast that deal aside because she genuinely believed that she was standing her ground -- both figuratively, and legally. But Florida's "Stand Your Ground" castle-doctrine law somehow didn't apply to her, despite the fact that her case appears to fit the statute to a T.

She was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault in a matter of minutes -- and today, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison, a sentence she will appeal:

The jury found that she had indeed discharged the firearm in the incident, resulting in her mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years due to Florida's “10-20-Life” statutes...

Afterward U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown also challenged State Attorney [Angela] Corey at the courthouse saying the charges were overboard and labeled the case "institutional racism." She said she has the best domestic violence attorney looking into and as well as other prejudicial outcomes against blacks. This is the beginning, not the end, she said.

Corey was firm in the punishment, noting Alexander's gunshot easily could have ricocheted and hit the children or husband.

Corey, as you may recall, is the same Florida prosecutor who filed charges against George Zimmerman, who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death in February. (Interesting that "Stand Your Ground" may very well be the defense she and her colleagues face from Zimmerman's attorneys.) Sunday being Mother's Day, Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton, has released a stirring video urging Americans to join the Second Chance on Shoot First campaign, which folks like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have joined hoping to drive lawmakers to re-examine laws like "Stand Your Ground."

For those who are unable to watch the video, her message begins, “This will be my first Mother’s Day without my son, Trayvon. I know it will be hard, but with my faith, family, and the outpouring of national support, I will get through." We'll have much more on this on Sunday's show.

Fulton's interview with NPR is just one of our daily reads. Click below the jump to see what else is on our radar today.

AP Photo/David Lewis

Sgt. Brandon Morgan, right, is embraced by his partner Dalan Wells in a helicopter hangar at a Marine base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, upon returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan on February 22 of this year.

President Obama's historic affirmation of support for marriage equality yesterday was followed up by some Republican machinations on the Hill today, passing a measure in the House along party lines that would, per Politico, stop the Justice Department from using taxpayer funds to actively oppose the Defense of Marriage Act.

The regression actually began last night, when, overshadowed by the President's news, the House Armed Services Committee voted to ban "marriage or marriage-like ceremonies" between same-sex couples from occurring on United States military bases.

The $554 billion defense bill was approved to include a measure to prevent same-sex marriage on American military bases, even if the bases are located in states where same-sex marriage is legal. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who is currently running for Senate, introduced the measure and positioned it as a defense against the President's promotion of gay rights:

"The president has repealed 'don't ask, don't tell' and is using the military as props to promote his gay agenda," Akin said Wednesday while defending his amendment.

A statement on Rep. Akin's website includes praise from Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who applauded Rep. Akin "for his efforts to ensure that the military is not used to advance the liberal social agenda of the Obama administration." 

Opponents of the measure argued that this ban is a huge step backward from the President's repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said that this amendment "sends a message [to gay and lesbian service members] that their service is not valued." 

Currently in the United States, there are 38 states that have laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman; 31 states, most recently North Carolina, have amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage as well.

Gerardo Mora / Getty Images

Ben Jealous, national president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

With state legislatures across the country pushing through restrictive voting laws effectively suppressing the pool of eligible voters -- in many cases in minority communities -- the NAACP is fighting back.

The civil rights group kicked off their “This is My Vote” campaign in Georgia yesterday, an effort to combat suppressive voter-identification laws by registering hundreds of thousands of young minorities to vote.

The surge in voter registration efforts pushes back on an influx of Republican-led state legislatures that have put controversial voter ID laws on the books requiring voters to supply a government-issued identification, and in some cases prove citizenship, in order to vote.

NAACP President Ben Jealous has spoken out against voter ID laws, comparing them to modern-day "Jim Crow." And though black voters turned out in historic numbers for President Obama's election in 2008, Jealous yesterday warned of the legislative efforts to curb minority voter turnout.

"Were we students of history, we would've expected that night, when everybody was celebrating, that we needed to be preparing for what we're dealing with right now," he said, referring to election night 2008. "We saw the largest most diverse presidential electorate this country has ever seen.

"Every time that the vote has been expanded, especially for black people in this country, it has been followed by a massive backlash," Jealous added. "We will ensure that those who intend to steal this election cannot."

That backlash to a diverse electorate that Jealous speaks of could carry a distinct impact on upcoming elections. According to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, 14 states have enacted, or are near to enacting restrictive voting legislation. In gauging the electoral impacts those laws, the Center goes on to say that the states with restrictive laws surmounts to 70 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Lawmakers on the conservative side of the aisle have chalked up arguments in favor of voter ID laws, warning that rampant voter fraud undercuts democracy. Take for example Texas governor Rick Perry, who in March spoke out on fighting fraud during an appearance on Fox News.

"I think any person who does not want to see fraud believes in having good, open, honest elections. Transparent. One of the ways to do that, one of the best ways to do that, is to have an identification, photo identification so that you prove who you are and you keep those elections fraud-free."

New York University’s Brennan Center also stipulates that fraud by individual voters is “both irrational and extremely rare.” They go on to say that voter fraud is about as likely to happen as someone being struck, and killed, by lightning, which at a rate of 0.00004 percent, we can safely say it almost never happens. (But don’t tell that to this poor dude.)

Melissa co-hosted "Politics Nation with Al Sharpton" yesterday, concluding the show with her take on President Obama's historic new stance on marriage equality. She led off by noting the importance of today, May 10, for an important reason. May 10 was the day that, in 1886, saw the House of Representatives pass the 14th Amendment, which reversed the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, thereby granting citizenship to slaves and others born inside the country's borders.

(Interestingly, May 10 is also the birthday of corporate personhood. The Supreme Court issued a ruling on that same exact day in 1886 in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, granting the same constitutional protections to corporations as citizens under that newly-passed, not-yet-ratified 14th Amendment.)

I'll let Melissa take it from here. Video of her interview with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) from earlier in last night's show is embedded after the jump.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

We'll have more about today's historical announcement by the President, but since 3:00pm ET, we've seen some very interesting the commentary from around the Internets. Taking a cue from our first excerpted writer, it seems prudent to sample some of that commentary here.

Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast:

The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama's journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it...

Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That's why we elected him. That's the change we believed in.

Adam Serwer, Mother Jones:

With the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the administration's refusal to defend in court the federal ban on same-sex marriage, and Wednesday's endorsement of same-sex marriage federalism, Obama is the most pro-LGBT rights president in US history. Nevertheless, the position he articulated today accepts the legitimacy of states like North Carolina subjecting the rights of gays and lesbians to a popular vote.

Richard Socarides, The New Yorker:

I suspect that at the end of this national conversation the result will be a good one, and the process, including Obama’s painstakingly slow evolution, will have been a positive experience for the country. Hopefully, it will lead us in a positive direction—which, after all, is the job of a President.

Jos Truitt, Feministing:

Yeah, I think this is a whole bunch of cynical political theater. The president’s change in position could make some real change in people’s lives, but it certainly could have helped a lot more people four years ago.

Megan Carpentier, Raw Story:

It’s unclear whether his larger statement will tackle DOMA more substantively; however, it is the first time a sitting President has said that he thinks same sex couples should be allowed to marry at all, even in the ways currently limited by federal and state law. It’s a start.

Greg Sargent, Washington Post:

I don’t know how this will play among culturally conservative swing voters who are supposedly going to be alienated by it, but I’ll tell you this much: I’m looking forward to finding out. I suspect that when Obama discovers that the political fallout isn't as fearsome as people said it might be, he’ll ask himself why on earth he dallied so long about it. If and when this issue is revealed to be a no-brainer to the American mainstream, it will have proven a significant political moment, too — a huge victory for the left, which has argued for this for years now.

The President's journey towards (public) acceptance of marriage equality is now complete. He has said the words, this afternoon in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts:

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

When you think about it, President Obama either may not have had any other choice, or this was planned all along. His Vice President and two of his cabinet members had spoken out in favor of marriage equality on national television within the last few days, bringing the pressure on him to "evolve" from his (public) hemming and hawing on the issue into a full-grown (public) believer in, frankly, what amounts simply to equal civil rights for a marginalized group of Americans.

David Corn of Mother Jones:

In any event, the most solid analysis of how Obama's decision will impact the election is likely this: who knows? Democratic sources close to the White House and the Obama campaign tell me that this certainly wasn't a carefully planned endeavor on the president's part...

Biden's unplanned comments placed this challenge on the center stage, and the president and his aides decided now was the time to confront it, realizing the political consequences could be mixed. Obama may have just figured it was time to come out on gay marriage and then he'll take it from there.

This is a historic moment, if only because we have still have Americans like those in North Carolina willing to further that marginalization through our government. And while I believe that words matter, I am infinitely more interested to see what happens now, both in terms of policy from this White House (which already has a strong record on LGBT issues), and in the President's just-launched campaign.

I sympathize with remarks like this one, which I just saw flying through my Twitter feed:

There's more to do.

Postscript: This announcement is already bringing out the silly on the Right. The Log Cabin Republicans, the oft-marginalized gay-rights advocacy group of the GOP, released a statement that they "appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue," and then blamed him in part for last night's Amendment 1 victory in North Carolina. Then this is the headline that was up at Fox News's Fox Nation website moments ago before they replaced it with "Obama Flip Flops on Gay Marriage":

If you see any more like this out there, #nerdland, let us know.