* VP’s position goes further than Obama’s
* Comments welcomed by gay rights groups
* Biden jokes he and Hillary Clinton might run as a team
(Adds Biden spokesperson comment in paragraph 9)
By Laura MacInnis
WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
said on Sunday he was “absolutely comfortable” with allowing
same-sex couples to marry, staking out a position on a
hot-button social issue that appeared to differ from that of his
boss, President Barack Obama.
In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Biden was pressed
on whether the Obama administration would seek to legalize gay
marriage in a second White House term. He said he personally was
open to the change.
“The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable
with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and
heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to
the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil
liberties,” Biden said.
Obama has said he favors civil unions but has stopped short
of endorsing gay marriage. However, Obama has also said his
views on the issue were evolving.
An endorsement of gay marriage could help energize core
Democratic supporters ahead of the November election but it
could also run the risk of alienating some independent voters
who hold more conservative views on social issues.
Senior Obama campaign aide David Axelrod sought to play down
any differences between Biden and the president, writing on
Twitter that Biden was saying that “all married couples should
have exactly the same legal rights.”
Axelrod said that was “precisely” Obama’s position.
A Biden spokesperson said that the vice president “was
expressing that he too is evolving on the issue, after meeting
so many committed couples and families in this country.”
“The vice president was saying what the president has said
previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve
the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and
that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights,” the
spokesperson added.
Joe Solomonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a
gay rights group, said in a statement that he was “encouraged”
by Biden’s comments.
But Solomonese added, “Now is the time for President Obama
to speak out for full marriage equality for same-sex couples.”
In the wide-ranging NBC interview, Biden also said the
United States was ready to give blind Chinese dissident Chen
Guangcheng a visa “right away.”
The vice president, who has been a main point of contact
with China for the Obama administration, said the United States
expected China to stick to its commitment to let Chen go abroad
and take up a fellowship at New York University.
“I think his future is in America,” Biden said. “He has an
opportunity to go to NYU … and we’re prepared to give (him) a
visa right away. He’s going to be able to take his family.”
Biden also dismissed rumors that Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton may take his place as vice president on the 2012
Democratic ticket, saying: “There’s no way out. I mean, they’ve
already printed Obama-Biden.”
Weighing in on speculation that the former first lady and
onetime Obama rival might run for the White House again 2016,
Biden joked: “I think we may run as a team.”
“I don’t know whether I’m going to run. And Hillary doesn’t
know whether she’s going to run,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman and Stacey Joyce)
