“Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). He has written a great piece, however, on how having young daughters has helped him turn towards marriage equality.
This is a welcome breath of fresh air after all of the right-wing nonsense about how marriage equality will harm children. Dodd posted the piece on Father’s Day, which gives it extra impact in this regard.
The New York Times noted that Dodd, who is up for reelection next year, had already backed civil unions, but stopped short of supporting full marriage equality during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. That is perhaps not surprising. I think it’s a good sign if he now things supporting marriage equality will help him win reelection.
Still, Dodd could have come out in support of marriage equality for any number of reasons. Given that anything to do with LGBT rights and children is bound to be controversial, the fact that he cited his daughters, their friends with same-sex parents, and the values he wishes to teach them, somehow rings truer than most pre-election pandering:
The fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore. . . .
My young daughters are growing up in a different reality than I did. Our family knows many same-sex couples—our neighbors in Connecticut, members of my staff, parents of their schoolmates. Some are now married because the Connecticut Supreme Court and our state legislature have made same-sex marriage legal in our state.
But to my daughters, these couples are married simply because they love each other and want to build a life together. That’s what we’ve taught them. The things that make those families different from their own pale in comparison to the commitments that bind those couples together.
And, really, that’s what marriage should be. It’s about rights and responsibilities and, most of all, love.