Endorsing gay marriage now, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote recently, could help Obama win back skeptical moderate voters and rekindle flagging enthusiasm among young people, who broadly support marriage equality.

“Mr. President, what better moment will there be? [Next year] you might lose,” she wrote.

Advocates argue that support for gay marriage could be Obama’s secret weapon for the 2012 election.

“I think if he did come out and say, ‘Yes, I believe gay people are equal,’ you’d have a lot of [gay and straight] volunteers,” Dan Choi, a former Army officer who pushed hard for the end of the ban on gays in the military, said last summer. “But as of right now, I do not think I should endorse a president that does not endorse my right to full personhood.”