he has his entire life he has been a servant of a community that has had different issues that they are dealing with. you ve had poverty, divorce, you ve had things that he has had to deal with as a bishop in the church, as a state president in the church which is a lay minister in the church. i think he could speak to those things because what the media is doing or what this campaign, the obama campaign is trying to do is say he s out of touch with everyday americans and he s not. he s probably more in touch than most americans because of the experiences he has had in all of his church responsibilities. s.e., that s a very good point. we talk about this a lot and i know hogan, you work for senator sanitorium. romney still has not figured out a way to talk about this stuff. to the congressman s point, he gives in 2011 he gave $4 million to the church. that s 19% of his income. 13.8% of his income.
president just accomplished here. other than giving it his sort of rhetorical he is not suggesting that he would go state to state and you know, seek amendments or something on the federal level. i mean, i don t know, if i m in the gay community or the gay rights community, am i really happy that this is a president who just said well, i finally decided to like you guys. i ve decided i accept you people. i don t know. it feels political. and it feels a little self aggrandizing. i will leave our viewers on this note from andrew sullivan writing i think one of the more moving pieces i read on this decision. he says just this. the interview changes no law, 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. the reason this was a big problem for president obama is because it is the first time i think a vast majority of the
doesn t. and i mean i would love to hear more about this part of his background. but i think what worked for santorum is he was able to project an authenticity about it all. it may be authentic for romney but he s not good getting into the personal stuff and doesn t project it well. maybe the congressman can comment on this. if there isn t an opportunity as a mormon for governor romney to say we as mormons have been ostracized and oppressed for 180 years, my grand father driven out of the country for his sexual preferences. seems there is an historical connection that he could say i understand, perhaps. congressman, i would ask you, is the mormon community let down by the fact that mitt romney has effectively put his religion in the closet? no, not at all. in fact t mormon community has a hard time talking about hair religion because we tend to be a community that doesn t wear our religion on our sleeves. sometimes you try to distinguish between your religious life and
of course it did. but the strategy i don t think is for votes. because as you say, people who were not going to vote for obama are still not going to vote for obama. and people who were you know, now have even more reason to. so i think this was more about dollars than it was about votes. i think obama wants some hollywood money, he wants money from the gay and lesbian community saying we re with holding until and unless he makes a statement on this. i think by even white house admission, in saying that they were going to do this at the convention, reveals that this was a political calculation. that s okay. as soon who has always supported gay rights i m happy to have him on our side now. but no one believes that he woke up i would dare say not the republican party position. but no one believes that yesterday was the day that he woke up in his evolution on this issue was complete.
of civil rights is questionable as it relates to the african american community. i heard this time and time again from my friends in the community say this is not the same thing to us. it s offensive to us that they use this in the same terms as they did in the 60s. we do not have the same struggles. we re not in the same dog fight. i think there is going to absplit in the african-american community. it doesn t mean they are going to now not support the president. it mean this is could keep them home, suppress some of that vote and also just make them a little angry at the president. when hogan said he didn t know the short-term versus the long term effect for the republicans or the democrats, i think that s right about the short-term. i think the politics that you galvanize some of obama s base, some of the republican base. who knows how that will play out. long term i think there is no question how it plays out. long term you see the last 15 years, the support in all of the polls f