As a kid born in the 70s one of my early influences was Donna Summer, whose music blared through the different stereos my family’s owned in my lifetime. I was coincidentally revisiting one of her interviews when I got the sad news of her passing. One of the topics of the interview was about Donna’s influence on women’s liberation. Before listening to the interview I strongly believed she had an influence. Just listen to Enough is Enough: “get the check ,pay the bill, you can do it.”

So sad that she had her Last Dance too soon.

Over at the NBC Latino Tumblr Victoria de Francesco Soto concludes that:

The president will face some difficulties with his new support of gay marriage … [b]ut, among the Latino electorate, the issue of gay marriage isn’t the kryptonite that can blast the President’s superhero lead over Romney.

I agree, as I’ve been saying in this blog for a while. And that was before I learned that Ricky Martin is hosting a fundraiser for the Prez.

Well, now I have to update what I said in my previous post. Not much changes politically, but that a sitting President finally publicly supports same-sex marriage is a (in the words of Joe Biden) “big F*#&$ deal.”

I say not much changes politically because marriage equality is the default position of Democrats and Independents at this point. This may change the minds of some in the fence but overall shouldn’t be a huge factor except in the margins. John Sides has a good post on the political implications at The Monkey Cage. 

Obama needs a few groups to come out to vote for him in big numbers. Latinos, as I have written before in this blog, tend to support same-sex marriage and this will be a big non-issue. Secular Americans are growing and are quite liberal, in the Gallup poll referenced in my last post 88% support SSM. This will probably show some of them that this President is still worth backing. Finally, young voters are more supportive of SSM and needed something to get excited about. Maybe this will be the push but who knows.

I sure hope that the President’s announcement actually speeds up the mainstreaming of same-sex relationships in the U.S.