I'm a Bible Belt Pol Coming Out for Marriage Equality -- Will Obama Join Me?

I've lived a lie for most of my adult life. As a statewide elected official in Kentucky, coming out of the closet for gay marriage was tantamount to political suicide. But now as a recovering politician, I feel compelled to holler: I'm proud as hell, and I'm not going to fake it any more!
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Yep, I'm for gay marriage.

I've lived a lie for most of my adult life. As a statewide elected official in Kentucky -- an
inner notch of the Bible Belt -- I understood that coming out of the closet for gay marriage
was tantamount to political suicide: an overwhelming majority of my constituents opposed
it.

But now as a recovering politician, I feel both liberated and morally compelled to holler
from the cyber-rooftops: I'm proud as hell, and I'm not going to fake it any more!

Growing up in Kentucky, gay marriage was never a topic of discussion.

But late nights of philosophical experimentation in college helped me discover that I'd been
for marriage equality all my life. With a father who'd marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and a mother who'd been a statewide force for women's rights, the notion that we were all
created equal was absurdly obvious. As a Jew growing up in the South, I knew what it was
like to feel discriminated, to be other. And that same faith taught me to "love your neighbor
as yourself" and to "judge not, lest you be judged," making marriage equality a natural
extension of my core beliefs.

I soon came out to my parents, close friends and ultimately, my future wife. (She was for
gay marriage, too, thank God!)

For the first decade of our marriage, living on the East Coast, we could be open about our
beliefs. But then we decided to move back home and in 1998, I even made the youthful
indiscretion of running for Congress.

There was simply no other option: I had to shove my gay marriage views into a back
corner of my closet. My consultants advised that any deviation or hesitation would
immediately make me unelectable. Even my savvy gay friends gave me a pass: they
understood that compromising on this issue was the only route toward the greater good. They'd rather have someone who sympathized with them and voted the way they liked
90% of time, instead of one that opposed them more often than not.

And while I didn't win that congressional bid (ironically, I lost the primary to a then-
closeted, now openly-gay man, Judge Ernesto Scorsone), I soon won two terms as state
treasurer, capturing large majorities in rural areas where my secret views would have
been anathema.

Many of my politician-allies quietly assumed that I was for gay marriage (as I did of them).
So did my rivals, some of whom began to gossip about my political lifestyle.

But I went out of my way to avoid the topic. When asked, I would parse my answers like a
Clintonian deposition.

In 2004, when state voters by a margin of 3 to 1 passed a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage -- and anything that looked like it (presumably civil unions) -- I was
both horrified by the policy and relieved by the personal political implication: when asked
in the future, I could say that the electorate had spoken; that my individual point of view no
longer mattered.

But it was a recent moment that revealed my position was no longer tenable. My 14-year-
old daughter, Abigail, came home from a Young Democrats meeting flustered: she'd heard
that her political hero, President Obama, was against gay marriage. How could we have
supported someone with such an abhorrent position on such a critical civil rights issue?

My stammering revealed that we hadn't had the "talk" yet. Lisa and I had shared our
equality views with both our daughters, and we were thrilled when they adopted these
values as their own. One of our proudest moments was learning that our older daughter,
Emily, had publicly defended a gay teenage friend who was being bullied. So how could I
reconcile my public timidity with my private passion?

I knew it was time to come out.

Some will castigate me for waiting until it was too late to make any difference. I plead
guilty.

But while such a gesture might have been noble and potentially educational, I determined
that, on balance, it wasn't worth political hari-kari. There were too many battles on too
many other fronts that I wanted to fight. Gay marriage is important, but so are poverty
reduction, educational opportunity, environmental protection and so on. I'd be giving up
on all of the latter to simply make a statement on the former.

Others will declare that my pronouncement signifies the demise of my own political future.
They understand that there's no way the same electorate that gave Rand Paul a landslide
victory would support a marriage equality advocate.

They're probably right -- in the short term. I deeply respect those Kentuckians who've
delved deeply into their own religious or moral beliefs and reached a different conclusion
on marriage equality. But I humbly and strongly disagree. And I feel compelled to fess up.

For I believe that my admission today can do some good.

First, it can help educate my daughters -- as well as my friends and readers -- about the
complex, nuanced decision-making process of most well-meaning politicians. In a political
system that forces candidates to the extremes, and with a media culture that portrays
issues in black and white, there are a significant number of pols who struggle every day to
accommodate their personal values with political realities.

Second, I hope it gives some small measure of comfort to marriage equality advocates
to know that there are politicians like me -- even in conservative states -- who support
gay marriage and will come forward when it no longer will disqualify them from winning office.

Time is clearly on equality's side: while recent polls show that somewhere between a
small plurality and a tiny majority of Americans support gay marriage, younger Americans
overwhelmingly are in favor. Last November, my hometown, Lexington -- a light blue
oasis in a deeply red commonwealth -- elected an openly gay mayor, Jim Gray. And just
a few months ago, a statewide poll revealed an overwhelming number of Kentuckians
support anti-discrimination protections for gays. Neither would have been the case in my
childhood, probably not even a decade ago.

Finally, I pray that that my endorsement of gay marriage will encourage more people --
politicians and average citizens -- to make the same admission. We are close to a tipping
point, when an anti-gay marriage stance could be seen as a political liability. Today's
politicians must understand that only a few decades from now, gay marriage opponents
might be viewed the same way we today view civil rights opponents from the 50s and 60s,
many of whom secretly supported race equality but were afraid of the backlash.

Harvey Milk, perhaps history's most influential gay rights advocate, was right: when
more gays and lesbians came out of the closet -- and the rest of us began to realize that
friends and even loved ones were gay -- the stigma wore off, and it became politically and
personally unacceptable to preach gay hatred. Similarly, when more people discover that
those they respect support gay marriage, it will help lead us on a path to full equality.
Unlike Lady Gaga, we're not "born this way"-- in favor or opposed to gay marriage. Our
positions can be transformed by the wisdom and examples of others.

So please join me today. Speak out on marriage equality; let your friends know where you
stand. Perhaps then, they will change their minds, or even feel liberated to come out of
hiding and stand with us.

Indeed, there's one politician whom I'm confident supports marriage equality, but has been
afraid to admit it. I suspect he's waiting for the right opportunity to announce it, when the
electoral benefits outweigh the political downside.

Mr. President, the time is now. Yes, you can... trigger the tipping point. Exercising bold
leadership -- instead of waiting to follow the generational tide -- might be your most
enduring legacy.

I know my daughters would be proud. And I bet yours would feel the same way too.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot