We all got a laugh when Van Jones, asked if President Obama would lose some support in the black community if he came out for marriage equality, quipped that the president wouldn’t lose such support even if he “came out as gay” himself.

“I don’t understand this strategy,” Jones said. “It’s not a hard-core issue for many African-Americans.”

Jones not only got it right in alluding to the fact that there’s really not one constituency among Obama supporters in the Democratic base, or among independents, that would vote against the president on this one issue; he was also right to conjure up the closet.

Obama is very much in a closet on gay marriage even though he’s been outed several times. Like others who’ve been outed, his past came back to haunt, in his case when a a questionnaire surfaced from 1996. The White House spin and denials have been as comical as former Senator Larry Craig trying to explain he had a “wide stance.“

Everyone, including his enemies, knows Obama supports gay marriage, to the point where there is uproarious laughter when TV commentators are sitting around discussing Obama’s claim that he is “evolving.” It’s bordering on ludicrous. Obama’s closet on gay marriage is about as well-guarded as Liberace’s was on being gay.

And it’s time for Obama to now kick down the closet door. It’s no longer a matter of whether he can or should. He must if he wants to win the election.

I’ve read the arguments against it. First let me say it’s fascinating to witness good liberals who say they support marriage equality and are certain the president does as well, but who tell us he needs to continue to try to fool voters — some would call it lying — in order to win, even though no one is fooled. These same people thought it was the most cynical politics when George W. Bush didn’t tell the truth on a wide variety of matters, some large, some small. You’ve got to chuckle at that one.