Opinion Contributor
Same-sex marriage debate: A model for other issues
When I first began representing Colorado in Congress during the late 1990s, the world looked very different. Less than three years before I was elected to the House of Representatives, Congress had passed the Defense of Marriage Act, legislation that banned marriage for gay couples at the federal level. More than 80 percent of the Senate and House voted for this law. At the time, no state allowed gay couples to publicly affirm their commitment to each other and their communities through civil unions or marriage.
Today, we face a very different world. Our country and leaders have undergone a stunning transformation regarding this issue — and my own thinking has evolved as well. As a moderate Western senator who supports allowing committed gay couples to publicly affirm their relationships and responsibilities through marriage, I believe my journey illustrates three important lessons about how we can make progress in this country, far beyond the marriage debate.
Continue ReadingFirst, good-faith re-examination of a position you’ve held in the past should be seen as a virtue, not a vice. Like most Americans, there was a point when I struggled with the idea of allowing gay couples to marry. I thought perhaps there was another way of resolving the issue, such as civil unions, that would satisfy both sides and avoid a major national argument.
But as time went on, I began to realize that gay couples just want to make the same promise of commitment and fidelity that my wife and I made so many years ago. I thought about my own wedding day — one of the happiest of my life — and I began to think that there is no substitute for the unique, public promises I made that day in front of our family, friends and community. And as I talked about the issue with my children and learned how open they were to marriage equality, I realized that allowing two loving, committed people of the same gender to make a promise of lifetime fidelity complemented my own beliefs surrounding the importance of family.
But in this age of “flip-flopping,” some people warned me that talking publicly about my personal transformation might be used against me. Despite this concern, I felt I needed to step up, and in August 2011, I announced my full support for same-sex marriage. At the time, I was only the 19th U.S. senator to do so — not many more than the 14 senators who had voted against DOMA when it passed 15 years earlier. And although I hail from a moderate, purple swing state, Coloradans have not punished me for changing my mind. If anything, they have supported my sincere reconsideration and honesty.
Readers' Comments (7)
Bunk. Queer is queer. Legality does not render it straight.
And there, in simple black & white, you have it. The reason why we must elevate the conversation to include every opinion. Even someone as actively homophobic and frightened as "cwt " needs to hear that the world has already come to terms with loving relationships and legal responsibilities on this issue, as have young people and most anybody who doesn't live under a rock...
You're only falling further out of touch with reality....
As a conservative I wholly agree with Mr. Udall. Furthermore, every conservative worth their salt should be fighting tooth and nail to ensure that this country provides equal rights and privileges to anyone and everyone especially when granting those rights hurts absolutely no one. Any time that people are denied rights that others have should have conservatives up in arms. And if anyone can find any shred of evidence that same sex marriage is harming anyone or has lessened the relevance of marriage for straight people please bring it on. In fact, I fail to understand why those who are so concerned with the state of marriage being on the decline don't fight to have a constitutional amendment to ban divorce or make pre-marital sex against the law. It seems to me that these issues are low hanging fruit and would go phenomenally further to protect "traditionally marriage" than would banning same sex marriage. In the U.S. states as well as other countries where same sex marriage is allowed studies find that marriage is enhanced not harmed - facts and studies do not lie.
I happen to be a relative of Senator Udall, so perhaps I know his history better than some. What he has written will hopefully be read by many and examined as how people raised in a religion that has consistently argued against gay marriage (both in print and funding) should take a walk outside their religious dogma/beliefs and ask, what if it your child.
Do you disown the child you once loved and raised because they are gay?
Will your hatred for many devolve into a hatred for you own child and deny them the opportunity to lead a full and complete life, including the legal right to marry if they so chose?
It appears that some are willing to deny their own child, based on their religious belief . It seems that when someone demeans and dismisses their own child, perhaps they need to ask themselves if and how that action makes their own life and values better.
Nice, touchy-feely stuff, Senator.
But please don't pretend that all who oppose marriage equality are good at heart. Most of those who fight the hardest against equality will never change, just as so many who opposed racial integration still refuse to recognize minorities as their social and political equals.
Put another way, how long do you expect equality to be held back until prejudice diminishes?
Translation: Udall is a weak Democrat politician in a purple state.
It's stupid how these people act like they are drawing on their faith and values to increase immorality in the country!
>>>>>moving that dialogue forward
But as for the law of the land, it is not a decision that should be made by political or judicial elites.
It should be decided by referenda of the People in each State. Let the majority rule. That's what democracy is.
Then, if one doesn't like the results, do the hard work of educating and persuading the People toward your view and try again.
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