Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joins NAACP and announces support of President Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage, but Powell stops short of endorsing Obama for president

- May 29, 2012

Colin Powell (left) and President Barack Obama

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)

Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State under former president George W. Bush, and the first Black in those roles, last week announced his support of Democratic President Barack Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage, a rare position taken by a prominent Republican operative such as Powell, who had previously opposed same sex marriage.

But Powell would not endorse the president as he did as a Republican in 2008, raising questions on whether he will or will not do so prior to the November 6 presidential election when Obama will square off with Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party and the former governor of Mass., the first state to hand out licenses to people marrying partners of the same sex.

Powell's endorsement of Obama in 2008 for the presidency over Republican nominee and Arizona Sen. John McCain stunned the big wigs of the Republican Party and drew public criticism from top party affiliates like Karl Rove, Bush's political adviser and the architect of his successful campaigns of two-terms as president.

Obama came out for same sex marriage earlier this month, and then gained the support from National NAACP President Ben Jealous and the executive board of the NAACP, among a host of others , including gay rights groups across America.

Both the president and the leadership team of the NAACP say that the right to marry, regardless of whether it is to a person of the same or opposite sex, is based upon a premise of fundamental fair play, while Jealous and the NAACP also argue that it is a constitutional right protected under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, an argument that Black Civil Rights leaders have traditionally discarded.

Romney has said that he opposes same sex marriage and believes that "marriage is between a man and a woman."

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