The senior administration officials declined to say whether the president would now push for gay marriage to be part of the Democratic Party's platform at the convention. They also said they were not changing positions on an Executive Order that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against federal contractors. The president has said he would not sign that order.

As for the politics of the matter, the senior administration officials cautioned that it was too early to read into the electoral fallout. They noted that public opinion had changed faster on this issue than on any other they had followed in their own political careers. And they noted that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's viewpoint –- that the Constitution should contain an amendment asserting that marriage is between a man and a woman -- was quite unpopular. [my emphasis]

It’s a weird thing to hold out on. Nobody doubts that the President could do this tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. It would not change in any way the need for legislation like ENDA to ensure protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, but it wouldn’t inhibit it either. During the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, the Administration and the Defense Department passed a number of executive orders and administrative rule changes to limit the damage from DADT. That had no impact on the repeal process. The idea that a lasting piece of legislation would be needed to ensure workplace protections for gays and lesbians is not a good excuse here. The point is that nobody doubts this is within the President’s power, he’s already made himself more than clear that he’s on the side of greater equality and civil rights, and yet the Administration just doesn’t want to perform this gesture, which would add protections for untold thousands of gay and lesbian Americans. Is the political risk of offending swing-state voters in North Carolina less potent than the risk of offending federal contractors who would not be allowed to fire somebody because they are gay? Is that the point here?

There is enormous condescension in Obama’s assertion that "I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally." He had not been adamant enough to push for an amendment to the Civil Rights Act to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Nor did he issue an executive order banning government agencies from contracting with businesses guilty of such discrimination.

... Romney revealed another potential weakness when he let religious right activists bully his campaign over its hiring of an openly gay foreign policy staffer, Richard Grenell. After the campaign froze him out of press briefings to quell the controversy, Grenell finally quit on Tuesday, with no effort by the presumptive nominee to persuade him to stay. If Grenell was qualified to hold the sensitive post of foreign policy spokesman, why did Romney cave instantly to demands from radio hosts and other ignorant bigots to let him go? ...

Meanwhile, his longtime critics on the far right are laughing at Romney. Bryan Fischer, right-wing extremist and leader of the American Family Association, openly gloated: "Let me ask you this question, people have raised this question," he said Friday on his radio show. "If Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to North Korea if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me?"