Politicians have the right to evolve on gay marriage

[Mass]

Good to read, particularly when it comes in mainstream media and not in a GLBT newspaper. (and interesting typo).

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/07/10/politicians_have_the_right_to_evolve_on_gay_marriage/

PUNDITS ASK whether President Obama can afford to “change’’ his position on gay marriage. It’s a phony debate about a real issue.

Marriage is deeply personal - our positions are based on unique combinations of reason, belief, and experience, not polling and politics. Everyone is entitled to his own view, in his own time, including the president.

...
But it’s not just in politics that we have come to a “better place’’ - it’s also the example of thousands of gay marriages in Massachusetts that pushed many of us along in our own journeys. In preparing for the 2008 presidential debatessic, I felt at times that it was an exercise in legalese to articulate differences between the civil unions I favored and marriage. But seven years after marriage equality became law in Massachusetts, it’s no longer theory, it’s reality.
...
Where do we go from here? I hope more states follow Massachusetts’ lead. But Washington still has work that’s been deferred too long. We repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell.’’ One day that era will seem as antiquated as the era before President Truman desegregated the military. So too will the era of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.’’ Repealing it is an unfinished challenge. I’ve joined with many colleagues in introducing legislation to end the law and provide federal recognition and benefits to married gay and lesbian couples. It would end the law’s discrimination, which for three years left a married Massachusetts couple separated by an immigration system that only recognizes heterosexual marriages. It took my intervention to reunite them; thousands just like them are still waiting.

Is this a journey for all of us? Yes - and appropriately so, because it’s a journey for our country. And although it sometimes takes too long, America always ends up on the right side of history.