The mainstream media has often heralded the marriage of former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama as an example to be followed by others.

That marriage, and the vows that cemented it, almost didn't occur, however, as a biography and supporting reports indicate Barack continued to date a former flame to whom he'd twice proposed during the same period in which he also began courting Michelle, according to People magazine.

Now more than 30 years after they were wedded traditionally, and despite being held up as an example for others, the Obamas stand accused of indoctrinating young children by pushing non-traditional same-sex marriage as an ideal for them to emulate.

Barack and Michelle's early courtship and marriage vow

According to The List, Michelle Obama recalled the early years of her relationship with Barack Obama in her memoir "Becoming" and how she had initially been resistant to his requests to go out together.

They first met in 1989 when then-Harvard law student Barack worked as a summer intern at a Chicago law firm where Michelle was a young associate tasked to guide him in his internship. The former president recollected, "I asked her out. She refused. I kept asking. She kept refusing. Finally, I offered to quit my job, and at last she relented."

The relationship continued even after Barack's internship ended and he returned to Harvard, and they were eventually married in Chicago in 1992. Michelle recollected their exchanged vows, "Barack didn't pledge riches, only a life that would be interesting. On that promise he delivered."

The marriage that almost never was

That vow was almost not made, though, according to a 2017 Washington Post review of David Garrow's "Rising Star" biography of Barack Obama, which shared a wealth of never-before-heard information about the woman Barack dated -- and twice proposed to -- before and during his early courtship of Michelle.

The other woman was Sheila Miyoshi Jager, whom Obama dated and lived with for several years in Chicago in the mid-to-late 1980s while she was a post-graduate student at the University of Chicago and he was a community organizer. Barack first asked Jager to marry him in 1986 during a visit with her parents but she turned him down due to her parents' concerns about their young age and his future career prospects.

They continued to date over the next several years but began to grow apart because of his increased focus on racial issues and rising political ambitions and Jager actually moved to South Korea for a time, at which point Barack asked her again to marry him and to which she said no once more, as she viewed the proposal as being made "out of a sense of desperation over our eventual parting and not in any real faith in our future."

While Jager was away in South Korea, Barack began to date Michelle, but Jager later returned to Harvard as a teacher in 1990 and resumed her prior relationship with Obama even as he maintained a long-distance relationship with Michelle who still lived in Chicago.

That rekindled love would not last, though, and they eventually parted ways for good in 1991, just months before Barack surprised Michelle with a proposal and engagement ring while the couple debated the idea of marriage while on a dinner date.

Now pushing same-sex marriage propaganda on children

All of that sounds rather typical and within the confines of traditional courtship and marriage, but the Obamas' views on such things have apparently changed over the years to now include the once-atypical and non-traditional form of same-sex marriage, according to Bleeding Fool.

The former first couple's Higher Ground Productions company is behind a Netflix animated series aimed at young toddlers called "Ada Twist, Scientist" that has in multiple episodes featured gay couples getting married, which many critics, including some who are themselves gay, have lambasted as leftist indoctrination and propaganda that has no business being in a show watched by little kids.

To some critics, the Obamas' propagandistic push of same-sex marriage on young children calls into question the seriousness of their vows and dedication to upholding the sanctity of traditional marriage that, per the media, they once exemplified.