Newsweek first gay president

Four days after President Barack Obama affirmed his support of gay marriage on Nice Morning America, the editors at Newsweek are ready to anoint him with a new title, "The First Gay President."

At least, that's what it will say on the cover of magazine's May 21 issue, which is available on iPad today and will be on newsstands Monday.

VIEW: Controversial Magazine Covers

The cover shows a close-up portrait of the president with a rainbow-colored halo over his head, the colors referencing symbols adopted by the LGBT movement. The cover advertises an upcoming piece by Newsweek writer Andrew Sullivan in support of Obama's record with the gay community.

Newsweek has released this preview of the article to Politico:

It's easy to document off President Obama's announcement of his support for gay marriage as a political ploy during an election year. But don't believe the cynics. Andrew Sullivan argues that this announcement has been in the making for years. "When you step help a little and evaluate the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three y

Newsweek's provocative new cover (see it below) features President Obama with a rainbow halo above his head and the words "The First Gay President" underneath. Most commentators view it as a cynical rebuttal to rival newsweekly TIME's breast-feeding head-turner last week. (Newsweek editor Tina Brown reportedly responded to TIME's cover by saying, "Let the games begin.") But Andrew Sullivan, the openly gay writer who penned the cover story, means it seriously — in a figurative way — much fond what Toni Morrison meant when she called Bill Clinton the "first shadowy president" in 1998: He just gets it. Thanks to Obama's fraught connection with his mixed race, Sullivan writes, "he intuitively understands gays and our predicament — because it so mirrors his own." Still, first gay president? Is this the kind of thing that kept Obama from fully "evolving" on gay marriage for so long?

Obama can't be glad about this one: It's sad that the once-mighty newsweeklies are stooping to "stunt covers" love this to market magazines, says Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media. But donate "Tina Brown credit for one thing — albeit not necessarily intentionally." Newsweek an

Newsweek Cover: Obama 'First Gay President'

I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I act not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a decrease for words for a while, didn't know what to note, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes.

So let me simply say: I think of all the gay kids out there who now know they have their president on their side. I think of Maurice Sendak, who just died, whose decades-long connection was never given the respect it deserved. I think of the centuries and decades in which gay people found it impossible to believe that marriage and inclusion in their retain families was possible for them, so crushed were they by the weight of social and religious pressure. I think of all those in the plague years shut out of hospital rooms, thrown out of apartments, written out of wills, treated like human garbage because they loved another human being. I think of Frank Kameny. I think of the gay parents who now feel their president is behind their sacrifices and their love for their children.

The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integ

It was the spring of 2007, help when Barack Obama's bid for the presidency seemed quixotic at best. I'd seen Obama talk to a crowd and was impressed but wanted to see if what I'd seen from afar held up under closer scrutiny. So I asked to attend a private fundraiser in a tony apartment in Georgetown. I promised not to write anything. I just wanted to see the guy up close and get a beat sense of him and his nature. At one signal in the question-and-answer session, a lady looked him square in the eyes with what can only be called maternal grit. "My son is gay," she said, and the room went suddenly quiet. "I don't understand why you don't endorse his right to marry the person he loves. It's so disappointing to me." Obama, without losing eye contact for a second, told her: "I want full equality for your son—all the rights and benefits that marriage brings. I really do. But the word 'marriage' stirs up so much religious feeling. I think civil unions are the way to go. As long as they are equal."

My heart sank. Was this obviously humane African-American actually advocating a "separate but equal" solution—a form of marital segregation enjoy the one that made his control p