Sen. Chris Dodd: Marriage Equality Pushes Us Toward the Arc of Justice

by Michael Jones · 2009-06-22 09:53:00 UTC
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Chris Dodd

Add one more U.S. Senator on the list of marriage equality supporters.  Senator Christopher Dodd, the senior Senator from Connecticut, has announced that he's changed his mind on the issue of marriage equality, and now supports the right of gays and lesbians to get married.  For Dodd, who was one of the Senators who supported the Defense of Marriage Act when it passed in 1996, this is a huge change of face.

But the best part about it, to me, is that his statement has some eloquence behind it.  Here's a bit:

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.

I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage.

And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history.

The simple fact of the matter is that marriage equality in the United States will become a reality.  Politicians will either be seen as bridges to civil rights, or as impediments to civil rights when the history books are written.  And the other cool thing?  Chris Dodd now joins Dennis Kucinich as the only other 2008 Democratic Presidential candidates to publicly come out in support of marriage equality.  Maybe these two guys can work on Obama, Clinton and Biden...

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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