Onward & Upward.

 Words.

"“I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

With that statement, President (and candidate) Obama advanced a cause that had been moving at geological speed until Vice President Joe Biden suddenly thrust the administration into support.

...After Vice President Biden grew feet and walked out of the warm sea on Meet the Press, Obama couldn't duck anymore. But he's not Bill Clinton, and he's not John Kerry. Because he's not white. And so he has a unique opportunity to move the gay issue along faster than anyone else could.

...Try to imagine Don King in black churches exhorting congregations to vote against Barack Obama over gay marriage. Not going to happen. In this way, the president was uniquely suited among Democratic politicians to advance the issue (just as Powell could have done in 1993). Until today, Obama’s mealy-mouthed and harmful public statements on gay marriage looked suspiciously Powell-esque. But as happens now and then to Barack Obama, history gave him an opportunity no one else could seize, and he did."

SLATE: Gay Marriage, Black Voters