It takes guts to change your position, to admit that you made a mistake, especially when you’re a Republican politician and will be called "a flip-flopper," "a waffler" or, worst of all, "a liberal." So I have to give Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, a lot of credit for switching his position on same-sex marriage and doing what the second most powerful man in America just can’t get himself to do.
Mayor Jerry Sanders abruptly reversed his public opposition to marriage
for same-sex partners and revealed that his adult daughter is a
lesbian.
Sanders on Wednesday signed a City Council resolution
supporting a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban. He previously
promised to veto it.
The Republican mayor said he could no longer back the position he took
during his election campaign two years ago, when he said he favored
civil unions but not full marriage rights for homosexual couples.
He fought back tears as he said he wanted his adult daughter, Lisa, and
other gay people he knows to have their relationships protected equally
under state laws.
"In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them
that their relationships their very lives were any less meaningful than
the marriage that I share with my wife Rana," Sanders said. [Link]
Yep, it’s a lot easier to oppose same-sex marriage when no member of your family is gay or lesbian, when it doesn’t affect one of your own.Sanders obviously has a conscience. Dick Cheney is still searching for his, probably in the same place that he’s searching for WMDs.
Well, at least Cheney was "pleased" in May to have a sixth grandchild, Samuel David, son of his lesbian daughter, Mary, and her longtime partner, Heather Poe.
"The vice president is pleased to be a grandfather for the sixth time," spokeswoman Megan McGinn said.
The vice president’s office announced in December that Mary was
expecting her first child and a spokeswoman said at the time that he
and his wife were "looking forward with eager anticipation to the
arrival of their sixth grandchild." [Link]
Just look at that "pleased" expression on grandpa’s face. He hasn’t smiled this much since Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction.
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