Tears, Texts And Hugs: How Politicians And Activists Reacted To Obama’s Gay Marriage News
Tears, Texts And Hugs: How Politicians And Activists Reacted To Obama’s Gay Marriage News
Pema Levy May 10, 2012, 6:11 AM 797
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For the gay politicians and activists contacted by TPM, President Obama’s public support for their cause hits home in a wonderful way. “It’s funny cause it’s not like anything passed,” Bye said. “It’s just the feeling that is so much more than I ever thought it would be.”
Others never thought the day would come at all.
“My reaction?” asks Sam Adams, the openly gay mayor of Portland, Ore. “It was something like, ‘Great frickin’ news!’” That’s “not very mayoral,” Adams admitted, “but heartfelt.” Adams said he never thought he would hear a sitting president endorse gay marriage. “Growing up in a small Oregon coastal town, in Newport, Ore., I never thought in my lifetime I would ever hear a president say that he supported equal marriage,” Adams said. “I’m 48, and that just was not something I ever expected to hear in my lifetime.” He received the news in a text message from his partner as he was leaving a City Council meeting.
“I’m gay. I’m almost 54 years old. I grew up in East Tennessee, where it was not really so easy to be gay, so I didn’t come out until I was in my 30s,” said Rick Jacobs, founder and president of the Courage Campaign and a longtime gay rights activist. “One of the reasons I worked so hard on full LGBT equality is because I don’t want kids growing up in East Tennessee or North Carolina or anywhere else in the country having no role models and thinking that they are less than the rest of their family or friends. And so when I heard the president today,” he said, “I literally teared up.”
“Who would have thought that this would happen so quickly?” said Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D), the first and only openly gay legislator in the Commonwealth. “I mean so quickly in terms of the marriage equality movement, I’m not saying it’s sooner for this president,” Ebbin said. “I think this president did this just in time not to be left behind by history.”
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