As I'm sure you saw on the main page today, in the last month, the percent of people supporting gay marriage jumped by 11%.
Yeah, that includes me.
I hope that maybe I can use this to explain my change, which I think probably applies to many others as well.
I'm a moderate Democrat, there's no doubt. I'm the guy who thinks Ben Nelson and Rahm Emanuel are good for the party, and is always worried about the party's image. I'm also a proud Christian, like our President, which inevitably influences my political views.
I had always looked at gay marriage as a bad thing. I first heard of the idea of gay marriage maybe 10 years ago, and I thought it was a pretty wacky idea. A baby can't have 2 daddies, or 2 mommies, that's just weird, right? Everyone seemed to think the same thing I did, so I didn't think much of it again, until 2004, when it became an issue in the campaign.
My sister (who is not gay) flipped out on me that year for opposing gay marriage, which was the first time someone straight I knew actually cared about it. I decided that I needed to put some thought into it. I couldn't get past the idea that the United States (or New York, or Ohio, or DC, all of which I lived in that year) would endorse an act that violated my moral principles.
But my position did move. My independent streak comes mainly from my libertarian side, and I had trouble with the idea that the government marries anyone. It seemed to me that marriage is a religious term; churches marry people, governments just establish Civil Unity. So I decided that I was opposed to the government marrying anyone: I figured that the government should give people of every orientation a civil union. If you wanted to call it a "marriage", go find a priest/pastor/rabbi/imam/Kinko's employee to declare you married and print you up a nice pretty certificate, and then within that religion (or whatever), you would be considered married.
I still like that idea.
But on March 1 of this year if you asked I would have said no to Gay Marriage. On April 30, I say, whatever, sure, who cares.
What changed?
Well, gay marriage was legalized in two more states, with two effects. I think that focused my attention on the two state that had had it for years, and I realized that the world hadn't ended, and in fact my life had not been changed or even affected in any way whatsoever. It also had me reading those stories - the people who love each other, fighting to make their love official, for all of the various benefits that come with it. In my head, I found my self moved by and rooting for them. It was hard not too.
So I again reevaluated. I realized that it does no matter at all to me if gay people get married. It doesn't affect me. It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't really hurt anyone. But it does make a lot of people's lives easier. Why should I stand in their way?
I think a lot of people had that same evaluation process this month thanks to the ruling in Iowa and the vote in Vermont. That's your shift.
So count me in that 11%. I've come around.