Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson
reiterated his support for marriage equality in a 30-second ad for
Freedom to Marry released late Monday.
“I was raised here, Cody, Wyoming,”
the 82-year-old Simpson says in the clip. “It was a town of
western values, independence, freedom. I'm a Republican. The
party's basic core is government out of your life. You have the
right to be left alone.”
“Whether you're gay or lesbian or
straight, if you love someone and you want to marry them, marry
them.”
“I've had a wonderful married life,”
Simpson says of his wife Ann Schroll. “Why shouldn't somebody else
have the joy of marriage?”
“Live and let live. It's very
simple,” he adds. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
“Speaking as a conservative, a
lifelong Republican, and a son of the West, Senator Simpson talks of
his values of freedom and limited government and the joy of
marriage,” Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said in an
emailed statement. “The ad shows the bipartisan momentum for the
freedom to marry. And recent rulings against marriage discrimination
by nine out of nine federal district judges show the legal trajectory
of our campaign: toward more freedom, more dignity, and more families
enjoying equality under the law.”
Simpson has previously criticized the
anti-gay rhetoric of the Republican Party, calling
it “disgusting.”