"how My View of Gay Marriage Changed" by David Blankenhorn

The Gay Revolt

As Obama’s first term was coming to an end, many political topics were revisited and discussed further than they had been for the last four years. One of these topics was gay marriage.
By Mads Juul Nørgaard
11 / 12 – 17

It’s 2012 and Barack Obama’s first term is ending. He has been the president for four years, but now a lot of different candidates are fighting to be the next president of the USA. Many debates has been had, and especially one topic is has split the country into two sides. Same-sex marriage is gaining more and more support by the day and though it has already been legalized in 6 states and the district of Columbia, the fight for equal rights is still roaring.

Barack Obama had just defined his opinion on the subject and endorsed Same-sex marriage before leaving the White House. In an interview with ABS’s “Good Morning America” he told Robin Roberts “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,”. His reasoning behind this change was, that he earlier had hesitated because he thought that civil unions would be sufficient.

The definition of the marriage is often what has led to the disagreement. In the article “How My View on Gay Marriage Changed” David Blankenhorn explains how his view on marriage was connected to raising a child. He believes that a child has, if possible, has the right to know and be cared for by his biological parents. A child raised by parents of the same sex would not always have this possibility, and he would therefore argue that the same-sex marriage should not be legalized.

Coming to terms with the young people’s view on marriage he has now decided to change his view on the possibility of same-sex marriage. “(…) gay marriage is almost entirely about accepting lesbians and gay men as equal citizens (…)”, Blankenhorn writes. He had hoped that the gay marriage debate would have been about marriage’s relationship to parenthood, but now argues that it is better to strengthen the definition of marriage instead of fighting the gay marriage.

In November 2012 the majority of voters, for the first time, approved of gay marriage. This marked at historic change which led to the led to same-sex marriage in the states Maine, Maryland and Washington. This change sparked outrage among many people, in the church some churches even refused to marry gay people. At a Maryland marriage Alliance meeting one pastor even invoked a bible-quote saying that gay people are “worthy of death”. The pastor later stood by his choice of words saying, “Worthy of death in that they are promoting the lifestyle and they are promoting what same-sex marriage is all about, and that is what we’re standing against,”.