New York Times tomorrow.
Daughter Spurs Gephardt's Changed View on Gays
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
Published: November 1, 2003
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 -- The first hint of the unexpected was in the annual Christmas card from Congress. There, in the photo of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and his smiling family, stood his daughter Chrissy with her arm around another woman.
Mr. Gephardt sent out more than 2,000 of the Christmas cards last year, letting his constituents and colleagues know for the first time that his 30-year-old daughter was proudly and openly gay. Since then, she has become one of the public faces of his presidential campaign and something of a celebrity.
Her transformation from a married social worker into an outspoken advocate for gay rights has been widely chronicled. But what is less commonly known is that her journey would have been far more difficult without her father's.
Mr. Gephardt's decision to turn the spotlight on his daughter underscores his own evolution in 27 years in Congress. In the early 1980's, he opposed abortion, school busing and federally financed legal services for gay men and lesbians.
Over the years, he has changed those positions and today is hailed by gay and lesbian rights groups for sponsoring legislation against hate crimes and discrimination and for being the first presidential hopeful to give a gay relative such a prominent and public platform.
"My dad is ever evolving," Ms. Gephardt likes to tell her audiences. "I'm working on him."
One of those areas is gay marriage, which she avidly supports and he does not.
I've been reading for weeks that the R's are going to make "gay marriage" an issue in the general election, particularly if the nominee is Dean. I know this is a devisive issue, but we might as well learn to start talking about it now. Perhaps some of our GLBT readers can offer some education to us straights.
I have to hand it to Gep for the evolution he's gone through during his decades of service. I hope I can do half as well. And he may well evolve some more on this issue.
I suppose it's possible that the SCOTUS will have its hand forced on this, possibly as a result of a pending decision in Massachussetts. To me, this is a plain and simple equal protection issue under the 14th Amendment. Any of you Con Law types out there want to address the constitutional issue?
UPDATE: This will improve my snark quotiant for the day. Found this at Chris Walton's
Philocrates
'Marauding Unitarian ministers...'
With polls showing more than half the American public now doubting the president's capacity to handle both foreign and economic policy, the administration needs an issue to distract the disgruntled. More pointedly, as Karl Rove himself has noted, 4 million Christian evangelicals did not bestir themselves to vote in the election of 2000. At the rate things are going, Bush will need every one of those votes next year. Time, then, to unveil the real risk to our security. No, not al Qaeda fanatics plotting the deaths of Americans at home or abroad . . .
Happily, Republicans have identified a threat right here at home on which the Democrats lack all backbone: marauding Unitarian ministers, cruising back alleys, threatening to swoop up same-sex couples and, before anyone can think better of it, marry them. Listen closely and you can almost hear the whispers: "Hey, big fellas -- wanna tie the knot?"