Electoral reality being what it is, he had little choice. The inevitable rebuke:

LCR president Patrick Sammon asserted in the statement that supporting the amendment is inconsistent with McCain’s belief in federalism. “Unfortunately, his position on this amendment hurts gay and lesbian families. We obviously disagree with Senator McCain on this issue and do not believe he should have interjected himself into this state issue,” Sammon said in the release. “Backing California’s ban sends the wrong signal to the independents who will decide this election because it creates the impression that he’s pandering to social conservative leaders.” McCain held a closed meeting in Ohio late last week with social conservative leaders, around the time the new statement appeared on ProtectMarriage.com.

Sammon, who has met several times with McCain’s campaign staff and once with the senator himself, declined to discuss the nature of those meetings or whether the senator had indicated what his official stance on California’s ballot measure would be.

The federalism critique is the same one that Ed leveled at Obama for his flip-flop on gay marriage this morning. I don’t really get it: If all they’re doing is saying how they’d vote if they had the chance, it’s no great betrayal of the principle in my mind. You’re allowed to have an opinion as a federalist; you’re not allowed to endorse a federal jurisdictional power grab to take the issue out of the state’s hands. Neither McCain nor Obama are guilty of the latter unless I missed something, although as Ed noted, His Holiness is certainly guilty of a dramatic reversal on the substance of the debate — much more so (the federalism issue aside) than Maverick is. Remember?

Update: Evangelicals wrestle with a shocking possibility: Could Obama be pro-gay?

Obama has passed the first hurdle by engaging people of faith and being willing to discuss his faith openly. He has passed with flyers colors. But now comes the hard part. It’s called scrutiny. His political opponents believe that once Evangelicals really get a handle on what Obama is all about policy wise, then they’ll be turned off and they won’t buy in to the lofty rhetoric.

Handing out pro-gay rights flyers while at the same time talking about your “Christian faith” is a MAJOR disconnect for not only conservative Evangelicals but for some of those Independent voting, moderate leaning working class folks in the rust belt. It doesn’t play well

Update: A commenter thinks Obama might in fact be pushing a jurisdictional power grab per what he said about “fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law.” I’d have to see details of the proposal, but the “federal law” part may mean merely federal jobs.