In an interview with ABC yesterday, President Obama went on record explaining the evolution of his personal views on same-sex marriage. The President gave, for the first time, clear support for same-sex marriage, “Personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married”.

The statement is sure to hurt the President in states like North Carolina, where the electorate recently passed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by a 61% vote. The decision may also dog Obama in a slew of other closely contested states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada. Still, the President left to grey area on where he stands on the issue.

The position is in sharp contrast to Mitt Romney, who is on the record as interpreting marriage as restricted to a relationship between one man and one woman.In fact, Romney stood by as his new spokesman, Richard Grenell was let go from the campaign. If Romney hoped to placate the right, he may be disappointed. AS conservative personality Bryan Fischer responded,

“… 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?”