Reply #5: USA today's take on last night Democratic Debate

[Divine Discontent]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-08-09-democrats-gay-forum_N.htm

Solmonese launched the event by asking Illinois Sen. Barack Obama whether he understood that gay people could see civil unions without marriage as "separate but equal." Obama replied that when his white mother and black father married in the early 1960s, interracial marriages were illegal in some states. "Obviously this is something that I understand intimately," he said. "It's not for me to suggest that you shouldn't be troubled by these issues." But as president, he said, his responsibility would be to make sure gay couples have legal rights.

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards said he was wrong to have said in an earlier debate that he opposes same-sex marriage because of his religion, but he did not answer when asked what is at the core of his opposition. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton got the same question and replied, "I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions."

Edwards said he supports teaching about families with "two mommies," as Etheridge put it, because children "can be mean and cruel." Asked what grade that should be taught, he said he didn't know.