SENATOR JOHN KERRY (1943–)

 

John Kerry (D-MA) hails from a home state that was the first to legalize same-sex marriage (in 2004)—and brought to Congress both Barney Frank and Gerry Studds, the first two out gay congresspeople. Senator Kerry refused to sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 and has long supported civil unions. Still, it wasn’t until July 2011, after New York State passed marriage equality, that he went on record supporting gay marriage. According to an interview in the Boston Globe, Kerry acknowledged that his own Catholic church–fed fears that same-sex marriage would cause damage turned out to be unfounded. “I don’t think it hurts the things I thought it would; lesson learned,” he said. “You evolve with these things . . . The sort of concerns I had—that somehow it would have some impact on the quality of church teaching, or that I wasn’t honoring that—I think is just not borne out by experience. Period.”

Kerry’s March 16, 2011 op-ed in Bay Windows lays out his argument against the Defense of Marriage Act and presaged his support, just months later, of full marriage equality.