1st Gay President Barack Obama Praises Queen of all Gays Ellen DeGeneres for Shifting Attitudes on 'Marriage Equality': ‘Nobody’s Been More Influential’

Mediaite.com:

President Barack Obama chatted with Ellen DeGeneres on her eponymous show Thursday, and thanked her for the role she played “changing hearts and minds” to make marriage equality more accepted.

“As much as we’ve done with laws and ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, etc., changing hearts and minds, I don’t think anybody’s been more influential than you on that,” Obama told DeGeneres.

Obama praised her “courage” for living openly as a prominent media figure for so long.

DeGeneres came out in 1997 on the cover of Time magazine some seven months after Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Her surrogate character on her ABC sitcom Ellen did likewise concurrently in an episode that ended up being the death knell for the show. The A.V. Club wrote in 2013 of that landmark episode:

I don't know who's more powerful, Obama or Ellen. Of course, and of little note to the liberal media is the fact that Barry is the same guy who as recent as 2011 was for traditional marriage.

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