Minding Marriage

Interesting insight into how one man - a man with very staunch views - changed his mind on marriage.  You might also note that this change came not from brute force, but rather from personal relationships and long term sharing of ideas and open minds.

I have every hope the Supreme Court will craft decisions that will move the country in the direction it is already headed: toward marriage equality.

And yet arriving at that position has for me been a difficult and painful journey. Until June 2012, I was a vocal opponent of gay marriage. I wrote a book about it and spoke against it across the country; I was an expert witness in support of Proposition 8.

I did all of that not because I condemned homosexuality or objected to gay civil unions — I didn't. But I believed gay marriage would weaken the traditional institution of marriage, the institution that binds mothers, fathers and their children together.

In the end, I didn't change my mind on gay marriage because I stopped believing in the importance of intact biological families. Nor was it because of new studies or additional facts. (Gay marriage still strains biological family bonds, although research also points to the potential stability of gay marriage and family structures.) And I didn't change my mind because I got tired of being criticized. I changed my opposition to gay marriage because of personal relationships.

For me the key was the gradual breakthrough of empathy. I found that as friendships develop, empathy becomes at least possible, no longer kept at bay by a wall of fixed belief. Put simply, becoming friends with gay people who were married or wanted to get married led me to realize that I couldn't in good conscience continue to oppose it.

Comments

[Stephanie Newman]

I'm really worried about what's going on in our country today. It was such a nice place to live in the 1950's-1960's. We never even locked our door. There are just too many people living in the US now and not enough decent places to live or good paying jobs. Every time i go to vote i hope and pray whether its a Democrat or Republican, things will change back to the way they were. But even i know better that things can't go back. So i have one request---PLEASE--give me a TIME MACHINE so i can go back.(http://www.whodoonews.com)