(Yahoo)
Through his career, Sen. John McCain has been a staunch opponent of same sex marriage. He opposed it during his 2008 presidential campaign and was vocal in his support for California’s Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in the state. His family, however, is increasingly on the other side of this hot-button issue.
McCain’s daughter Meghan distanced herself from her father’s stance last summer when she posed for an ad for NOH8, a gay rights campaign seeking to defeat Prop 8. Now his wife Cindy is joining in the effort and is also appearing in an ad for NOH8.
NOH8′s founder Adam Bouska lauded the shift, noting that it’s still very “stigmatic” for prominent Republicans to support gay marriage publicly.
“In the year since we’ve started the NOH8 campaign, we’ve often been surprised at some of the different individuals who have approached us showing their support,” he wrote. “Few, though, have surprised us more than Cindy McCain.”
Cindy McCain isn’t the first political spouse to do this, however. During the 2007 Democratic Primary, Elizabeth Edwards stated that she’s “completely comfortable with gay marriage” even though her husband John, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was steadfastly against it. Michelle Obama has hinted at her support, saying in a speech that connected the gay rights struggle to civil rights: “The world as it is should be one that rejects discrimination of all kinds.”
Even Laura Bush pushed back against her husband’s aggressive advocacy of a federal gay marriage ban. In an interview with Fox News in 2006, the former first lady said, “I don’t think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously. It requires a lot of sensitivity to just talk about the issue – a lot of sensitivity.”
Prop 8 remains in the headlines because, though passed by California voters in November of 2008, it is now being legally challenged by another unlikely pairing. Ted Olson, the conservative lawyer who represented George W. Bush in the legal dispute over the 2000 election results, and David Boies, the lawyer who represented Al Gore in that same case, are leading the legal team. The case in currently in front of the California Supreme Court.
Julia Rosen, the online political director for the pro-gay marriage rights group CourageCampaign.org, says that she and other backers of the cause are elated to have the two former legal adversaries on their side.
“It’s hard to imagine a more dream pair,” she said” “Thus far, everyone has been very impressed.”
Rosen is live-blogging the events of the trial and said that though things appear to be “going very well” for Prop 8 opponents, “it’s likely that this case will ultimately end [by] being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Meanwhile, despite the opinions of his wife and daughter, John McCain remains firmly in favor of Prop 8. In response to his wife’s ad, McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan issued a statement saying that the Senator’s “opposition to gay marriage remains the same,” adding “Senator McCain believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman.”
- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News blog
