Albert Mohler at LifeSiteNews:

...In the aftermath of the Stephanopoulos interview, New York Magazine stated the obvious with this headline: “President Obama Won’t Say if He’ll Stop Pretending to Oppose Same-Sex Marriage Before the Election.”

Now, The New York Times has published a major article arguing that the President is allowing his surrogates in the Administration to advance the issue for him. In “Obama Still Lets Surrogates Take the Lead as Gay Rights Momentum Builds,” reporter Mark Landler explained:

“President Obama has long relied on his oratorical gifts to ease him through tricky political situations. But on the emotionally charged issue of gay rights, Mr. Obama has been content recently to let his lieutenants do the talking. And they have said some striking things.”

On the specific issue of same-sex marriage, Landler reported: “There is little indication that Mr. Obama plans to endorse same-sex marriage before the presidential election in November, despite recent statements that tiptoe right up to that position.”

Thus, the dance continues. The reason for the President’s reluctance is clear enough. Landler nailed the rationale head-on, explaining that the President “is reluctant in an election year to be drawn into a culture-war issue — one that reliably helps Republicans turn out evangelical voters in their favor and also strikes a particular nerve with religious black voters, a bedrock Obama constituency in battleground states like North Carolina and Florida.”

This disingenuous waltz will be a hard dance to maintain, and the President must know it. Nevertheless, some political authorities in Mr. Obama’s own party are advising him to keep it going.

... President Carter said, “If your main goal is to get re-elected, avoid a controversial subject as much as you can in the first term.”

Mr. Carter recalled that he alienated too many voters during his first term, and, as he told a group recently, was “involuntarily retired.”

Maybe that explains it all.. The first Obama term is all about “evolution” on the issue. Clarity will come only after the 2012 election Then, and only then, will the dance end.