Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage

President Barack Obama made a risk taking descision to openly endorse gay marriage, becoming a civil rights figure and slightly changing the way his re-election campaign will run. Obama’s decision thrilled many of his supporters at a time when the president needs additonal backing and some financial support, even though it has outraged some of his more conservative supporters. This may be especially true in the state of North Carolina, which voted the night before to ban same sex marriage, and in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, all states that currently have strong amendments defining marriage only as between one man and one woman. President Obama told ABC news last night that he had decided “It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
Obama being the first president to openly support gay marriage is a milestone to many supporting gay rights/civil rights. Maybe presidents before him supported same sex marriage in private opinion, but it is an impressive first step to openly declare a postition on an issue that, in this decade especially, has become a very prominent civil rights issue. Religious conservatives that did not originally support Mitt Romney may now support his campaign. I don't think that this will be a large help to Romney's campaign much because people who were already against same sex marriage probably weren't going to vote for Obama anyway because of his more liberal beliefs. Obama's beliefs encountered a similar reaction when he announced that he is "pro-choice", supporting a womans right to make their own opinion about abortion. Within 30 minutes of the president's announcement, recieved many generous contributions to his re-election campaign. (up to $10,000, which is the maximum amount allowed for a private contribution.)
I think this is all really interesting, but not as big of a deal as the media portrayed it to be.