couples from getting married or having children. and the evidence didn t support that. so they tried one thing during the campaign, then they abandoned that and they tried something else during the trial, and that didn t work, either. and mr. boies, for those who say why not have domestic partnerships, why marriage? well, what the judge found and what all the evidence showed was that domestic partnerships were not equal to marriage, that when the state sponsors discrimination against gay and lesbian couples by saying you have to have this second-class status, you can t have marriage like normal people, that is the worst kind of state-sponsored discrimination. we have a lot of areas in this country where we still have a long ways to go before we achieve the kind of equality that our country was founded believing in. this is the only area in which the state actually has official
with the birther movement. this new poll comes on the day president obama turns 49. let s talk about it in raw politics. with me now, cnn contributor and democratic strategist paul begala and cnn contributor and editor in chief of redstate.com, erica ericsson. i want to ask you both about this poll that is now-out out on the president s birthday basically showing that at least a quarter of the country saying they re not sure where the president was born, that a lot of them believe he was born overseas. paul, this far into the presidency does it make sense that so many people still seem to believe this? no. this is where i think we re going where partisans pick facts to suit their case. it s 41% of republicans. 41%. who believe that president obama was not born in america. now, he was. it s a fact. it s indisputable. and what frustrates me sometimes in the media is what i call the neil armstrong effect. one person says the moon is made of green cheese and we have somebody else on
private property? yeah, you know, it does. but i think the private property issue is a canard to a degree. you know, there are bigger issues at stake here. we are at war with a group of people. this is going to be a propaganda victory for a lot of people who we shouldn t be giving them that victory. but but this is a guy i mean, i don t know him personally. but this is a guy who has been here. he s a u.s. citizen. he s been preaching in tribeca for more than 20 years in a mosque. the state department actually sends him out around the world to represent the united states as a place that is welcoming to muslims. isn t this exactly playing into the hands of osama bin laden by painting all muslims with the same brush and basically saying moderate muslims are under suspicion unless they can, you know, prove their allegiance? you know, we re not painting all muslims with that brush. we are painting some with that brush who deserve it, i think. and this is a guy who says one thing i