Bill Clinton changes mind, supports gay marriage

September 26, 8:35 PMSonoma County Civil Rights ExaminerMegan Coffey

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In a September 25 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, former President Bill Clinton acknowledged that he has changed his mind and now supports full marriage equality for gay couples.

During the interview, Clinton revealed that he had been “hung up” on the word “marriage,” but finally realized recently that his opposition to same-sex marriage didn’t align with his other views, such as his support for adoption rights for gay couples and his agreement with the House effort to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—which Clinton himself signed into law in 1996. The former president also affirmed that individual states and churches should be allowed to marry same-sex couples without federal interference.

Clinton had earlier hinted at this fortuitous flip-flop, during a Q-and-A session at the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington, DC in July; the CNN interview was an official confirmation of his “evolving” stance on marriage equality.

Clinton’s change of heart is a welcome sign that fair-minded Americans can learn to overcome the prejudices of their youth and embrace LGBT equality as a civil rights issue. It now remains to be seen whether Clinton’s own wife (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) and President Obama will follow the former president’s lead—and join the majority of Democrats across the country—by becoming supporters of gay couples’ right to marry.